ANTHONY LIMBRICK had no doubts about handing Woking midfielder Declan Appau his full debut despite their 3-2 defeat to Guiseley at the Laithwaite’s Community Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Appau scored a brilliant 20-yard strike that flew into the top corner in the 14th minute before Rowan Liburd struck either side of half-time to turn the game on its head.
Regan Charles-Cook then equalised for the hosts, but Mike Fondop took advantage of a defensive error to net the winner just moments after coming on as Woking drop to eighth.
Speaking to Woking FC TV, Limbrick was paid tribute to the former Arsenal trainee, who had previously made four appearances off the bench this season.
Limbrick said: “When the opportunity came up today I had no hesitation to put him in. He’s been pushing in training and he’s been fantastic with his attitude and his work-rate.
What a strike, it was unbelievable from him and I’m really pleased for him. I was hoping that that might have been the winning goal or prove to be a goal that got us something from the game.”
There was a moment of controversy in the first half when Guiseley goalkeeper Johnny Maxted appeared to have handled the ball to prevent Jamie Philpot running through on goal.
Limbrick was disappointed in the referee’s performance, but was cautious not to say anything controversial based on just one view on the incident.
He added: “The referee didn’t have a great game for both sides today and wasn’t great in the major decisions in the game. I wonder if he would have given a penalty on Inih Effiong.
It looked like that Philpot got a touch and tried to nick it over him and the keeper had handballed it, I need to see it again, it all happened very quickly but our view from the bench was that he did handball it and stop a goal-scoring opportunity.”
Despite this, Woking yet again had themselves to blame for their defensive errors, which has been a theme of the last week. After conceding two goals from set-pieces at Bromley and then a further three against Dover days later, Guiseley equalised from another set piece.
However, Limbrick rushed to the defence of this back line and was bemused about what more his side could have done in the build-up to the equaliser.
He said: “I don’t know what we could have done to prevent the first goal but a lot of the time for those situations it’s about the second ball and we did a lot of work on that in the week and thought we dealt with that reasonably well.
“Guiseley are going to be organised, they’re going to be direct and they’re going to get balls into the box and we defended them well in the first half.
We won a lot of headers that were coming in from long throws and free-kicks and we practiced for that in the week, so it was unfortunate to concede just before half time after getting ahead.”
Limbrick was also disappointed in the way the Guiseley goals were scored, even more so after Woking gifted them the opportunities, which most frustrated the Woking manager.
He added: “To score two goals at home but then to concede three in the manner we conceded them, it felt like we gave the opposition the win as oppose to them coming here and really having to work for it.”
“We gave the ball away playing out from the back which is unlike us and it’s probably the first time it’s resulted in a direct goal. It was a disappointing and frustrating afternoon.”