Gavin Cowan: AFC Telford are better this season
An emphatic 4-0 FA Trophy win at Guiseley on Saturday left AFC Telford United manager Gavin Cowan satisfied that his team is ‘evolving’ from the side he took to the semi-finals of last year’s competition.
“This is a different group – we’ve made a few tweaks to the group and we’ve got the character in the changing room now, said Cowan.
“You’re always evolving, so it’s no disrespect to the group we had last year, who were brilliant, but we are in a better position than we were.
“That’s not always reflected in the league table, but I really feel like this performance was a good advert for where we feel we are now.”
Goals from Zak Lilly, Marcus Dinanga and an Aaron Williams double made light work of National League North rivals, and Cowan was full of praise for the way his side put his plans into action.
“We deserved the win,” said Cowan. “No disrespect to Guiseley, but I thought today was a day where we were right at it.
“The lads put into practice everything that we’ve worked on; they worked hard, showed desire and did a job and a half all over the pitch, and they all deserve huge credit.
“Not only did they look good in possession, but they did the other side of it, at crucial times in the game.”
Their qualifying round victory netted the Bucks £3,750 in prize money and they advanced into today’s first round draw, with ties scheduled for the weekend of December 14 but Cowan said they will take things one game at a time.
“We’re just really focused on each game, trying to be better with each game,” added the Bucks boss.
“I said to the players, they will choose to do what they want to achieve this season. We have all of the ability, we have the right group and the right changing room, but it’ll be their choice about how they want to go about games, and I just have a feeling this group will make the right decision.”
“But we need to be better, for longer – a lot of people would articulate that as ‘consistent’, but I don’t really like that word.
“A few times recently we’ve spoken about luck, and about feeling sorry for ourselves, but we’ve decided to be masters of our own destiny now.
“That was our big lead-up into the game, that we will choose where we want to be. The clean sheet is brilliant, defenders defending and goal scorers scoring, it’s made for a good day.”
