11 a side Friendly v East Bergholt 21st March 2009

From a squad of 21 players we only had 13 available on the day. This meant that all the players had a lot of work to get through and a lot of football to play. We received no complaints!!

The line up was-

Goalkeeper- Ollie S
Defence- Sam, Will & Connor S
Midfield- Freddie, Curtis, Charlie, Keiran & Ollie M
Strikers- Dash & Matty
Subs- Kyle & Nat

I don't think we've ever beaten East Bergholt and they've always been hard fought games.
We started very brightly, we had stressed to all the players what was expected of them and to use the width of the pitch. For the first 20 minutes every player stuck to his job superbly. Ollie was fairly quiet for most of the half as our defence coped brilliantly with everything thrown at them, Sam and Connor picked up the strikers with Will on hand to sweep up behind them.
Charlie battled well in the centre of the pitch, winning crucial tackles allowing the players around him to use the ball. Keiran carried out his instructions superbly, playing lovely simple passes wide, allowing Ollie Mac plenty of the ball. Right in front of our fans who wee impressed with his performance. The only thing missing was the finished product. We need to use the possession to get the ball into the box more. The linking play was not as fluent on the left as Curtis settled in to a brand new position. when he and Freddie did link they more often than not managed to get the ball forward into dangerous positions. Dash and Matty worked hard up front, both players have been working on their first touches and this was evident from the amount of possession they had. Kyle and Nat were introduced during the half as we rotated the players and settled in well.

For the last 10 minutes of the half we seemed to forget to use the width and ended up in a slogging match in the middle of the pitch.

East Bergholt were also playing well so the score remained 0-0 at half time.

We started brightly in the second half, the boys were clearly relishing the bigger game. Once again we played to our strengths and began using our passing and moving game to good use. We came close to opening the scoring on a couple of occassions. Bergholt also pushed forward and there was a moment of controversy when a brief lapse in concentration allowed their striker through on goal. Ollie waited a fraction too long before deciding to come off his line, he ended up trying to tackle the player outside the box and hit him with a late challenge, flattening him. In a league game he would have been sent off!! Luckily the striker recovered and they fluffed the free kick.
A few minutes later after another scrummage in front of their goal they managed to clear to the edge of the box where Freddie let loose a first time shot. The keeper managed to save it but not hold it. Nat Was there in the right position to fire it into the roof of the net. 1-0

After the goal we never looked back. The Bergholt strikers just couldn't get past our defence, our midfielders were stroking the ball around and our strikers always looked dangerous. we got our reward when Keiran's shot was dropped by the keeper and Matty pounced to poke it home.

Soon after Matty got his second when Dash made a great run into the box and squared the ball for his strike partner to finish well. 3-0

This was the final score and a well deserved win. Overall we performed very well. The Berholt manager texted me afterwards and congratulated the boys on a superb performance, he thought our passing and movement was "something to aspire to" A lovely compliment.

On a team performance like this there can be no man of the match. every player did the job he was set and every player can be very proud of the performance.