McMahon pleased by Dagenham & Redbridge competitiveness

Published:
3:00 PM March 6, 2022

Dagenham & Redbridge boss Daryl McMahon is glad to have a selection headache for their trip to Yeovil on Tuesday.

Daggers were without a National League fixture at the weekend, having beaten in-form Maidenhead United 3-0 at Victoria Road last Tuesday.

And that gave them the chance to work on the training ground ahead of the journey to Huish Park for a rearranged fixture, after the original February 19 clash was postponed due to Storm Eunice.

“Every single week you want to make a decision where ideally on a Friday, 14 players are putting their hand up to be picked because of their performance in training and the previous game and you’ve got to make tough decisions,” McMahon told the club’s website.

“Every time I do pick our team it is generally tough because you’re leaving out good players, but that competitiveness in the squad is what we want.

“If you’re going to be successful in this division over a long campaign you need people that can step in and step out. The ones who came in on Tuesday night did really well.”

Junior Morias opened the scoring against the Magpies on his return to the side, with Paul McCallum adding a quickfire brace just before the break.

And McMahon was pleased to see his side respond so positively after a 3-0 defeat at lowly Altrincham the weekend before.

He added: “The performance on Tuesday was good to bounce back from Saturday, which was a particularly poor performance.

“We bounced back strongly at home and hope to build on that now.

“It was a good performance, a professional performance from start to finish, great to get the three goals in the first half and even better for me and all of us to keep the clean sheet was really important.

“I thought the performance in the second half, we didn’t get too carried away, we stayed solid, stuck to the game plan and we looked a good side.”

Daggers remain in 10th place, seven points off a play-off spot, having taken 11 points from nine matches in 2022.

And McMahon should have Angelo Balanta (calf) and Matt Robinson (concussion) back in contention this week against Darren Sarll’s side, who drew 1-1 at Notts County on Saturday.

“In terms of poor form, there’s been one or two games where we’ve been well off it, compared to where we want to be,” said McMahon.

“In other games, we’ve played alright and not got our just desserts out of the game.

“The boys are an honest group, they’ve worked hard all season to be fair, I’ve got no complaints, players and staff, and we’ll continue to do that.

“Darren’s teams are hard to play against, they always are, they’re always aggressive. Going down to Yeovil is always a tough game, but it’s another game in this division we look forward to.”

*Matt Robinson has been named in a 16-man England C squad to face Wales later this month.

Paul Fairclough’s side will take on their Welsh rivals at Caernarfon Town on Wednesday, March 30 at 7pm.

Robinson, 27, was previously called up to face Estonia U23s in October 2016.

https://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/dagenham-and-redbridge-daryl-mcmahon-quotes-8736506

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