Kick-Off: 11am

Referee: Phil Brown

Team:

1. Jack Morris
2. Richard Meagan
3. Robbie O’Donnell
4. Craig Dale
5. Chris Cockbill
6. Liam Cooper
7. Will Gill
8. Connor Bartle
9. Dylan Farrow
10. Macaulay Kilpatrick
11. Max Pashley
12. Ryan Birch
13. Tom Marshall
14. Ryan Shield

Match Report:

Everyone who watched today’s game will have their own opinion about why we lost another match that we could so easily have won. The reality is that nobody will be 100% right, football isn’t that simple. One thing I will never do is criticise individual players; it is not fair and to be honest at this age it is possible to be great and dire in the same match.

We conceded our first goal on five minutes and East Valley looked very strong in the opening stages. We made a change and 10 minutes later we were back on level terms; good work by Chris set-up Dylan who finished well.

Ten minutes later Ryan B put us ahead as Dylan turned from scorer to supplier.

Then a moment of madness. The last time I saw a goal scored so easily was when Leicester City allowed the Nottingham Forest goalkeeper to walk the ball into the net in the recent replay at the City Ground. Quite unbelievably we allowed the East Valley player to literally walk the ball into the goal without so much as a challenge.

Half-Time: 2-2

We changed formation at halftime because we were struggling to cope with the speed and strength of the East Valley front two. And the change seemed to work for the first 20 minutes. Six minutes into the half Will scored an excellent solo goal from the right. When Will runs at players and attacks the ball he always looks dangerous.

Then we had 8 minutes of lesson learning.

We know that we don’t have a great deal of pace in the back four so to counter this we don’t play a high defensive line. For reasons unbeknown to me our defensive line sat on the half way line; this meant that the play was compressed in the East Valley half. I know some people would see this as a positive; not me, not having witnessed how East Valley like to attack. All that happens is every one of the opposing players is back behind the ball which means the area you want to attack in is congested. If you think we are at our most dangerous when our forwards have space to run with the ball you can understand why our chances are restricted. The reverse of course means that whilst everyone is pushing towards the East Valley half there was a massive gap between our defenders and our goal keeper (wouldn’t we have enjoyed all that space to attack!!). When East Valley launched the ball long out of defence and our defenders missed their challenge the forwards were directly through on goal – one of the East Valley forwards is the County 200m sprint champions apparently so he definitely took some catching.

So eight minutes, three long balls and 3 goals for East Valley.

Fulltime: 3–5

Summary:

Thanks to East Valley for today’s game; we are two teams with more or less the same strengths and weaknesses. Good luck for the rest of the season.

We have spent this afternoon pondering what we need to do to stop giving away so many goals, and I have come up with a few ideas that we will try; some might not work but some will. Some might not be too popular with some people and others will love the chance to try something different. The only thing for sure is that we are determined to put things right and get back to winning ways as soon as possible.

I would ask that everyone gets behind the team and encourages and supports every player. No one player is going to turn our fortunes around; it will need to be a team effort.

Thanks to Steve and John for sharing the flag duties and also those that took down the nets at the end. Thanks also to Phil Brown who was our ref today.

Alan and Mark.