Wings Now Have A Prayer Under Boss Coyle Once Again

The Welling United lionheart isn’t just the club’s central defender. He is their manager as well.

That means every defeat or blow taken that much more personally, every pill that much more challenging to digest once swallow.

Yet he knows more than most that things can turn around quite quickly.

Struggling early season and seemingly more worried about leaving National League South via the bottom three rather than the other end, the Wings began to fly.

Now they look a healthy bet for the play-offs and almost showed with ten men at Hampton that they have what it takes to compete with the top sides in the division. Watch Highlights Here.

Undone by a late, late leveller in time added on, the Kent club had to settle for a 1-1 draw.

But Coyle was keen to keep things in perspective.

“If we had the team we have now at the start of the season it would be a completely different story,” he said.

“It’s all ifs and buts of course but we are really pleased with what we’re doing. It’s a totally different place to the first couple of months.

“We had to start a fresh totally in the summer. It was literally a blank canvas, a complete overhaul.

“It was always going to be a long term plan to get things to where we want them, but we have given ourselves a chance.

“We certainly don’t think there’s anything to be scared of regarding the play-offs.

“Clearly the first objective is to get in there, we’re on a good run of form at the moment so we don’t see any reason why we can’t.

“There’s a lot of clubs going for the places of course but we are in there at the moment.

“But it’s not going to be easy because we have such a small squad. We have got quite a few loan players in there and one thing is for sure and that is that we are going to need a fair amount of luck between now and the end of the season.”

The club went up into the National League under Jamie Day of course in 2013 - he was player manager and so is Coyle.

“If we perform like we did against Hampton between now and then, we have have a good chance,” he added.

“The club has shown before at this level and above that it can achieve so we will keep on working and make sure we give ourselves the best opportunity we can.”