I didn’t believe in Deja-vu until this season, we make the same mistakes week in week out and it is costing us heavily. Whether we are good enough to correct these mistakes is questionable, but I think that our second half performances in the last 4 or 5 games shows we are. But the players must realise that they can’t expect to win games when we gift side’s easy goals in the first half and then pick up our game in the second half.
We managed to have a squad of 14 players even though two dropped out Saturday morning and 4 or 5 regular guys were unavailable for various reasons, I think this shows that we are gradually getting the volume of players. Although the reserves did not have a game we only needed to take one player - Yacine.
The game started ok for us and when going forward we looked good, the opposition were a very experienced and physical side having come down this year, al little too physical at times with two challenges during the game that could have quite easily resulted in broken legs, the referee in my opinion was a bit too lenient in showing just one yellow card during the game. Yacine in his first game for us was linking up play well and with Ben’s pace they were causing the defence a lot of problems. The problems cam with us holding such a high line when defending as Borden Village had a very effective front two, they play with the big man/small man partnership with the smaller guy very pacy and the higher up the pitch we held our line the more room he had to run into and only some good covering by Ollie and Rob James prevented them from scoring, although this wasn’t to last and they got there goal from a long ball knocked on for their player to run on and finish. The second goal from what I can remember as I was drifting in and out of consciousness with pneumonia at this point was pretty similar to the first.
At this point we stopped defending as a team, not just the defence but the forwards stopped working as hard, the midfield stopped closing down and going with runners and the defence lacked concentration, it could have been a lot heavier deficit if it was not for our goalkeeper “Biscuit”, I cant pick him too often as every time I say his name I get hungry, he pulled off 3 or 4 top drawer saves. Saying that they did get their 3rd goal from a corner which we failed to defend properly, although some players were complaining that the ball was outside the quadrant when the kick was taken, but this was not why we conceded the goal and cant complain as it doesn’t matter where the kick is taken from if you don’t defend properly.
Yacine had a great chance to pull a goal back when he and Ben linked up well only for him to put it over from 6 yards. Although we were poor first half we did ok when going forward and created some good chances, but our finishing was as good as our defending. At half time we spoke about the players being more confident and committed.
Soon into the second half we scored with a great run and finish from Dave Hymers, this lifted us and we then took the game to them. Due to injuries we made a couple of changes bringing on Ashley Dunmall back from suspension for Tom Bowyer and switching Ollie to play at centre back, with this we looked a lot more solid. Ollie this season though not always available due to rugby commitments is turning into a top player who is maturing and becoming more confident, he is a big positive for the club and we should try and get him to play as often as possible. Luke Hattle came on for Ross and the “General “came on for Lee Gunning and both did well.
During the second half we were taking the game to them, but there were periods when we were under pressure but we coped a lot better in the second period and managed to contain them well, although they did have a good chance to score from a header and Biscuit pulled off a couple of good saves. We managed to pull another goal back when Matt Rice Tucker scored a great individual goal, his first for the first team to round off another good display from him.
Overall this was another bad week for us, with some positives. We played a team who are pushing to go up and for 45 minutes more than matched them, unfortunately games last for 90 minutes. We have now dropped further down the table and are hovering above the relegation zone. Luckily we have the opportunity in the next few weeks to play some of the teams around us and hopefully get out of the trouble were in, but this will involve the players being more committed not just on match day but maybe not going out and getting absolutely hammered on a Friday night and expect to play well the following day.
We have shown glimpses that we could be a decent team but we have to do this over ninety minutes. The positives this week were Ollie Allman as previously mentioned, Yacine who made an impressive debut from the reserves, and the second half battling performance but we need to be doing that from minute 1 to 90.
Team
S.Temple
O.Allman
D.Hymers
T.Bowyer
R.James
R.Taylor
M.Wood
L.Gunning
M.Rice-Tucker
B.Brooker
Y.Marouani
S.Lindsey (for L.Gunning)
A.Dunmall (for T.Bowyer)
L.Hattle (for R.Taylor)