Kirton Kestrels 4th April 2009

This was another 11 a side friendly. After todays game every player would have had a go at the 11 a side game. (apart from Harley)

The starting line up was-

Goalkeeper- Ollie S
Defence- Dan, Kyle & Connor R
Midfield- Curtis, Jack, Cammy, Keiran & Alex
Strikers- Nat & Jake
Subs- Freddie, Will, Sam & Charlie B

From the kick off Kirton looked the brighter team. They were stringing together some nice passing moves and caused us problems straight away. We weathered the initial storm with some strong defending from Kyle and Dan. Jack, Cammy and Keiran worked hard to get back and support the defence as we settled down and began to work our way into the game. Alex and Curtis looked dangerous going forward but again our wide men were being underused.

Kirton were strong in attack and made a dangerous attempt down the left. Dan managed to get in a superb tackle to stop them, conceding a corner. Unfortunately a number of our players let the ball go past them, no one taking responsibility to hoof it clear, it landed at a Kirton players feet, he matched to poke it past a crowded box to make it 1-0 to Kirton. Kyle was very close to clearing it off the line.

Keiran carried on from his performance in the East Bergholt game and supplied Alex with some good possession. On the left Jack tried the same but was struggling to make his mark on the game having just come back from injury. He was replaced by Freddie, who immediately linked well with Curtis and began to put some lovely moves together.
Nat and Jake worked hard up front but were not getting the amount of supply they are normally used to. Unfortunately most of the good moves were prematurely ended by the offside rule. Nat in particular found this difficult to adjust to. In my opinion the strikers have the biggest adjustment to make when stepping up to the big game.
Kirton played out the remainder of the half marginally dominating the play without having any real chances on goal.

The remaining subs were introduced for Nat Jake and Connor. We immediately went into attack from the kick off. Cammy sent a great ball down the left for Curtis to run on to, he carried it forward and sent the ball high towards the back post into the danger area exactly as he's been trained to do. The ball looped over the keepers head and dipped in at the back post 1-1.
We began to dominate the game after this and looked dangerous everytime we got the ball. Keiran and Charlie linked well to send Will down the right. He sent in a low cross to Freddie at the back post. The keeper managed to dive and stop it reaching Freddie only to see it land at Keiran's feet as he continued his run and finished calmly to make it 2-1.
I felt we could have gone on and finished off the game bit for some reason we stopped playing our wide game and settled into another middle of the pitch slogging match. This allowed Kirton back into the game and saw them start to create chances. It was only a matter of time before they managed to get the equaliser.
The game ended disappointingly 2-2. We switched off after our second goal and paid the price. This was only a friendly however and we have a number of points to work on in training.
I was pleased with the effort put in by the boys. It's not easy adapting to a bigger pitch and new rules but I think overall out 11 a side games have been very promising.
Man of the match went to Kyle. I thought he stuck to his task very well and was solid in his tackling. A special mention to Frenchy who had a good solid game.