By Dominic Bliss
Justin Fevrier could be forgiven for feeling downbeat after a 3-2 defeat at Folkestone Invicta left his side bottom of the Isthmian Premier League, but the Corinthian-Casuals manager is remaining positive in the face of a challenge, and says he sees nothing but belief and determination in his players going into this Saturday’s home game against Canvey Island.
“I’m still confident,” he said ahead of Tuesday night’s training session. “As much as our position may look daunting to a lot of people, the maths suggests that we can still get out of this, I believe we can get out of this, and the faith I see within the camp suggests we can do it too. It will just take one result to change the way we see things.
“We’ve had a few injuries recently that haven’t helped, along with some new faces who have been settling in. But that is happening, they are gelling and our performances have definitely improved – we’re a lot closer. We’re damaging ourselves with the errors we’ve been making but we’re working on cutting those out in training and if we can do that, we know that we’re capable of getting out of this position.
“We know pretty much how many points we need to achieve that, and how many wins that is as well. Having said that, we also know to take it one game at a time, so we’re not looking at anyone else’s results, just our own, and the group are extremely positive about it.”
It can be tempting to look back at mitigating circumstances and moments when we haven’t had the rub of the green this season, but Fevrier is less focused on rueing his bad luck and more interested in what he and his players can do about turning things around.
“The reality is we are where we are for a reason,” he says. “We’ve put ourselves there, and we’ve had enough opportunities to get ourselves out of it. We can look at a number of things that have gone against us, but ultimately it’s been down to our performances, and we can’t blame anybody else apart from ourselves.”
Four goals in the last two games – three of which were scored in stoppage time – suggests that there is still plenty of fight in the players too.
“Absolutely,” he nods. “They do not want to lose; they do not want to go down. The fight is there. You could see that in Fin Lovatt on Saturday. Even at 3-0 down, he was going to get the ball from our defensive third, then carrying it all the way to the final third and getting shots off. These players do not want to let the club down, so keep the faith in them because they really do want this.”
No one wants to see this team succeed more than the supporters, who have suffered some testing times this season, to say the least, but even in the toughest spells, the Corinthian-Casuals faithful have remained in place at the end of the game to applaud the players off the pitch, something our fans are renowned for throughout non-league football. Fevrier is keen to thank them for their unwavering backing.
“The supporters here are brilliant, absolutely brilliant,” he says. “I’ve never played for, or managed, a club where the fans back you like this, home and away, win or lose. Even on a bad day, they are always there supporting you, clapping you off the pitch, and appreciating your work.
“It’s a special group and if we’re going to do this, we are going to need every single one of the fans behind us, because those games like the Hornchurch fixture… without the fans, we definitely wouldn’t have come back in the last minute. So it is very much appreciated.”
Canvey Island come to the UBG Stadium at King George’s Field in fifth place, and count former Casuals midfielder Charlie Edwards among their number. In terms of league positions, it is a similar scenario to our previous home game – a 2-2 draw with high-flying Hornchurch – and Fevrier points to our performance in that game as a reason for optimism, despite the fact we couldn’t hold out for the 1-0 win we looked set to achieve midway through the second half.
“Over the last few games, we’ve faced some of the strongest attacking lines in the league,” he says. “In that respect, we’ve just come through a really tough time and we’ve managed to stay in those games.
“We could have taken that Hornchurch game. There was an error in that game that cost us a goal, but it was a case of a player coming off injured, and the player replacing him not picking up his man from a corner immediately after coming on. So those margins are what’s costing us games at the moment, and we’re aware of them. It’s just about stopping them and capitalising in the periods when we’re on top.”
Amid the cold-eyed assessment, the optimism and the faith remain among the players and management. On Saturday, they have the chance to put that positivity into practice as we look to kick-start the Casuals fight-back.