Darren Sarll has issued a rallying call to Woking supporters in an effort to guard against the feeling of expectation at the Laithwaite Community Stadium, insisting, “we need them to be boisterous and intimidating at times”.
The Cards boss saw his third-placed side grind out a 2-0 win against Maidenhead United on Saturday (March 11).
And Sarll was keen to get the message across that his team cannot be expected to be on maximum throttle all the time despite their fantastic season so far in the National League.
“It’s really weird because, and everyone needs to hear the words the right way and the way I’m saying them, an expectation has grown in our ground.” he told the club’s website. “And the expectation is that, I don’t know, repeat Chesterfield [best display of season] first half every game.
“Or we do something absolutely superlative. Football is not like that. It’s 11 men versus 11 men. It’s tough and it’s hard winning games when you're Woking.”
He added: “It’s really important we don’t get to a point here where there is an expectation we come down that tunnel, and it’s going to go bang and we explode into a 2-0 lead.
“At this stage it’s about accumulating points in whichever way we can. And utilising the attributes of the team to try and earn those points.
“So we are going to need them [fans] to be boisterous and intimidating at times. Because as human beings we all need each other. It’s an important back nine of the season and we definitely need them to invigorate us because it won’t unfortunately always fall on the players. They are human beings. So let’s make this place really busy, really intimidating and have a real sort of aggression in the air for teams that come here. I felt it against Aldershot, the home game. I know it was Aldershot. But every team that comes here has to feel they are playing 2,500 of us. Otherwise it’s very hard to win games at Woking, very hard.”
Maidenhead were a difficult side to break down but the Cards scored twice without reply – through Padraig Amond (31) and Luke Wilkinson’s deflected long-range free-kick (72) – against a side who hardly had a shot at goal.
“These games are trying to have the ball a little bit more and you have to try and open up the opposition,” continued Sarll. “And because of the season we are having I think we are having to do that more than I thought we would.
“I didn’t necessarily think we would be third in March. Sometimes we have to try and open the opponent up. Sometimes it looked really scratchy and horrible. But there were some really good passages of play, especially second half and we felt we had flow and momentum. I was really pleased.”
He added: “These are difficult games. Maidenhead are difficult to play against, they have certain qualities that make it really hard for you. It’s one of my only wins against this club.
“I was pleased with the energy and positivity in the players. You could see we were trying to create and break lines and break the opponent down. They sat quite deep which gave us another test. Any win at this stage of the season cannot be underestimated. It was a huge win.”
Woking host fourth-placed Chesterfield at home on Saturday (March 18), 12.30pm kick-off, live on BT Sport.
