BRAINTREE Town's culpability to concede early goals was again their downfall after they lost 3-1 to Maidenhead United at the Rare Breed Meat Company Stadium in what proved to be Angelo Harrop's final game in charge, writes DAVID WARD.

The Iron allowed the visitors to score with ease in the first and ninth minute all through dreadful defending and in reality, never recovered.

Braintree fell to defeat against the wily and vastly experienced ex-Iron manager Alan Devonshire who knew exactly, as he always does, to set out his side up to defend first and then spring lightning strikes and score goals.

The other clear indication from this 90 minutes of frustrating football for Iron fans in the 777 crowd is that the visitors played the ball on the ground, passed to one another and their players were far too quick for the home defenders.

(Image: JON WEAVER)

In comparison, the Iron continued, as sadly has been their trait for much of the season, to hump long, high balls out from defence only to reach the visitors' backline who then put their foot on the ball and began passing it forward to their own players.

Indeed, every time Maidenhead crossed the halfway line they looked most likely to score.

As a result, having conceded those two ghastly unnecessary early goals the Iron faced an uphill battle against a far more sprightly visiting outfit and in fairness in the second half they bucked their ideas up and began to put more pressure on the visiting backline.

(Image: JON WEAVER)

Dreadful defending allowed Maidenhead to almost walk the ball into the Iron net for their opener.

And then to make matters even worse nine minutes later, a misunderstanding between goalkeeper Lucas Covolan and a defender allowed Tristan Abrahams the simplest of tap-ins from a few yards out.

The rest of the first half was really shambolic in all honesty and it was only just past the hour when the lively Kyrell Lisbie came on as a substitute that Braintree began to seriously threaten.

Lisbie gave home fans hope when his speed and tenacity saw him pull a goal back, on 66 minutes.

(Image: JON WEAVER)

But any hope the Iron had of salvaging anything from the game went up in smoke on 72 minutes when Marley Miranda was shown a second yellow card and dismissed after conceding a penalty, which Sam Barratt duly dispatched after giving Covolan no chance.

There was no way back for the Iron from then onwards and despite lots of huffing and puffing, they simply ran out of ideas to make it two dreadful defeats within the space of four days.