Dagenham & Redbridge boss John Still insists side were not complacent ahead of facing Worthing

Joe White of Dagenham & Redbridge in action against Worthing (pic: David Simpson/TGS Photo) ©TGS Photo tgsphoto.co.uk +44 1376 553468

Daggers suffered shock exit from FA Trophy, but manager says that was not because side were over-confident

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Dagenham & Redbridge boss John Still does not believe his side were complacent heading into Saturday’s FA Trophy clash with Worthing.

Heading into the game, 58 places separated the sides in the English football pyramid, yet it was National League promotion hopefuls Daggers who crashed out.

From the off at Victoria Road, the Essex club looked lethargic and at times uninterested, but Still insists his squad did not go into the clash with the Rebels thinking it was already won.

“I didn’t see complacency, you can get it, but I didn’t see it in the squad,” said Still.

“I see some players that are trying too hard at home to be good instead of being effective.

“We want to play football, but sometimes you don’t get into the areas to play how you want to play.

“We said even with Worthing they would stick two holding midfielders right in front of their centre-backs and what we had to do was try to get past them.

“The longer we left the pass, when we wanted to get the players in behind, the balls would drop to those holding players.

“We needed to get the ball out of our feet, get the pass in and past their midfield players, but we didn’t do it.

“We looked at it in the week, did quite a fair bit of work in the last couple of weeks on teams coming to our ground and breaking out at us through sitting deep and we played short, allowing them to break.”

Though Daggers were a goal up at half-time, Still opted to make a change by bringing on top scorer Oliver Hawkins for Chris Assombalonga, who had been out on the wing.

Hawkins had missed the previous weekend’s win at Dover Athletic with a back injury, and Still revealed he had always planned to give Hawkins 45 minutes in the Trophy.

“’Hawks’ was always going to come on at half time, regardless of the score at the time,” added the Daggers boss.

“He was always going to come on at half time, I didn’t know particularly where, but it wasn’t anything to do with the game.”