The first game of the season saw us pitted, in a home fixture, against
newly promoted Gotherington Juniors. With three players, two of whom are
defenders, unavailable due to school rugby our back line was depleted.
There was then a further withdrawal with Willbo pulling out with an
injured back in the warm-up. So despite a squad of 15 we were down to 12
fit players.
Lining up in a 4-2-3-1 formation Will was in goal and in the absence
of Jordan captained the side. The back four was Sam, Freddie (who had a
stormer and may have found his best position), George and, in his
competitive debut Dan G. In front of the back four were Harvey and Jacob
as the holding midfielders. In front of them Louis, Max T and Luca with
Dan H as the focal point of attack. Callum on the bench.
We started strongly absorbing early Gotherington pressure and
started to get on the ball more. Louis on the left was getting loads of
the ball and playing neat passes and long crosses into the box for the
strikers to latch onto. In deeper midfield Jacob was his usual self,
tackling everything and perpetual motion, alongside him Harvey had his
best game and is another player who may have found his best position.
In the first half Harvey won more or less all of the long clearances
from the Gotherington keeper heading them straight back where they came
from. Once we had won the ball he was neat in possession and rarely
gave the ball away. He capped a MoTM performance with a fine headed
goal, the ball crashing in off the underside of the crossbar, from a Max
T corner.
The front four were marauding up front with Max T, despite being in
how own words "a little rusty", pulling the strings and using the pace
and trickery of the wingers to feed Dan H up front. Dan H, Max T and
Luca each scoring a brace and each could have scored more but for some
excellent goal-keeping and last ditch defending (and profligate
shooting!).
The point was made afterward the match that 5 of our goals came from
the ball starting at the back with our goal-keeper. The ball played to
the defence then through midfield to the strikers. That, as with the
winning of the ball in the air, was a feature of todays performance.
While sterner tests will surely come the way we won, retained possession
and then in the final third played one and two touch football was
lovely to watch.
Callum, as our only sub, was called into action early replacing Dan H
up front and then latterly Dan G at left back. With Willbo unable to
recover from his back pull we were as Harry (Redknapp) might say down to the bare
bones.
The work we have done in training has produced results immediately.
Harvey headed the ball more today than in the whole of last season! The
back four were talking, calling for the ball and winning headers. The
midfielders and wingers were demanding the ball and then helping each
other in possession.
As we proved today the front four we have we will always score goals
what we need is the platform to allow them to do that. Today we did
that.
There were no poor performances in any part of the field today, the
team worked hard and learned lessons from last season. That is why we
won today.
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