Starting line up
Liam Angell
Karl Bolton
Rob Lusher
Jon Ewens
Stephen Dodd
Joe Elvin
Ash farrell
Isaac Penza
Gideon Barnett
Barry Clark
Emmanuel Afful
Subs/dropouts
Jordan Mills
Kendal Campbell
Nick Etty
Another game where the 4's were filling in for the 3's and try as we might, continuity got the best of us. We were somewhat of a changed side from the away game from the week before but it was quite good to be playing at home again on the Dukes Meadow pitches and may I say, it was a lovely day to cycle to the game as the sun was shining, the river thames was glistening and the lycra clad women at the boathouse were looking tremendous, but I digress.
On a beautiful day for football we got our pre match drills in and welcomed back some familiar faces in the for of Gids, Barry, Manny & a couple of others but due to a clerical error on his side Andrew Williams missed out on the match as we had 14 men. As usual we did our pre match drills and Kendal had brought along his friend Natalie (one of the Haringey Borough Women's fc players) to watch but unfortunately the game ended in defeat. We started off well and after everyone got familiar with each other in the pre match drills we all knew our roles and in my starting lineup (especially up top) I paired Baz & Manny & was hoping that they'd exploit their familiarity with each other being that they are work colleagues but we were under a lot of pressure 1st half as Old Finchleans clearly had played alongside each other regularly as their wingers were playing some neat 1-2's to get at our full backs and carve out chances.
We lost the toss before kick off which ended up being crucial due to the way we conceded our 1st goal but more on that later. We actually took the lead in the 1st half after great work by Manny from a through ball, he was brave & beat the keeper and similar to David Nugent's only goal for England in as much as Manny did the hard work and from close range Isaac Penza scored his first goal for the club on only his 2nd appearance. The equaliser from Old Finchleans came in very fortuitous circumstances and even though I had a cap on the sun has to take the blame. Now of course i'm not a keeper but I came to the edge of my box with the ball in my hand to kick it out, but I booted it out and the ball came straight back and as I was so far off my line and the ball bounced as I was caught in no mans land as I desperately looked into the sun, lost the ball and whilst stretching for the ball I basically palmed it into my own net. Fortunate goal yes, but a goal it was and I had to hold my hands up and apologise to the guys and I did at half time. 1-1 at the break and we were holding our own with a fortuitous goal levelling things up, but I thought i'd change things up a touch with Nick Etty coming on for Isaac at right mid after Ash Farrell had limped off with an injury in the 1st half which forced me to bring Jordan on replacing Baz up top & putting him in midfield.
Later on in the 2nd half the evergreen Karl Bolton came off with a twisted ankle after a corner so we had another reshuffle to make as Kendal Campbell came on at left back after we'd switched formations at half time with Gideon switching in to centre midfield, Baz went out to the left. When Karl came off Stephen Dodd slid in to centre back alongside Rob Lusher and we battled on but we conceded 3 more goals, 1 of which I had came from a corner after i'd made a low point blank save and from the resulting corner I made a couple of saves but it fell to one of their guys who blasted past me. 2 came from slide rule finishes that were buried right in the corners, 1 top right and one bottom right after some slick interchanges of play with their wide men coming in centrally and causing problems. We did have our chances but in the end we were beaten by the better side who had a lot more fluidity in their play, but again this week I couldn't fault the guys for effort, it's hard times at the club right now with a lot of things up in the air and we need to dig in to survive.
I'm Straight Shootin' LJA and that's my take on the match
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