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Hi everyone and
welcome to the new season
With a good
pre-season and plenty of hard work within the training sessions,
both management and parents are hoping for a bright start to the
campaign,
Conditions could
not be any better with the sun shining the pitch in good condition
and great support from parents, Haydon Clayton and Tai Brown got
the game underway.
Westbury started
the brightest with good early exchanges between the midfield trio
Thompson, Brown and Charlwood, however nothing we did seemed to
worry the opposition goalkeeper who looked to be on top of his game.
Five minutes in
and most of the game was being played on the Westbury left side with
Charlwood winning his battles and spraying the ball wide to the
tireless Thompson who was beating his man with ease and linking up
with the lone striker Clayton, who when clean through fired just
wide.
From the
resulting goal kick Westbury were caught sleeping and a little flat
footed at the back. The long ball over the top, the opposition
striker collected the ball on the edge of the Westbury goal area and
placed it in the bottom corner. from nowhere Westbury found
themselves a goal down.
This seemed to
knock the wind out of the lads sails as within the next five
minutes, although the football was very good to watch and the lads
were doing everything they had been taught another two cheap goals
were given away. I don't think anyone could quite believe what they
were watching. Take nothing away from the opposition they played
very well also, but Westbury were not looking like a team that
should be 3 goals down.
The introduction
of Chance for Charlwood changed the look of Westbury, with brown
tucking into the centre and Ryan Chance wide on the right. Within
minutes Chance was putting his pace to good use with some of his
custom runs and crosses that are proving to be more effective with
each game he plays, but when Thompson popped up on the back post he
hit the ball back across the goal which looked certain to cross the
line, only for the keeper to pull off another fine save. At this
point I remember kicking the floor thinking to myself "its gonna be
one of those games". But with the players still remaining upbeat and
showing nothing but determination throughout the half I recall at
least another 3 or 4 chances we either narrowly missed or the keeper
saved.
Oldbury were
pinned in their own half for a good five minutes, but you have to
give credit to any team who can weather the storm as they did and
then with the one break away they had, "yeah you guessed it" they
scored 0-4. I remember looking across the pitch to Mr Charlwood
senior and the look of utter disbelief on his face summed up the
half.
Half time 0-4
Second half.
The second half
saw brown partner Partridge at the back, Chance and Thompson on the
wings, Charlwood sat in the holding role and Clayton as the lone
striker. The game started with a bit of a shaky 2 minutes were the
lads needed to settle in their positions and found ourselves on the
back foot, but with alfie Whitehouse in goal ( who I feel could not
anything about the 4 goals in the 1st half) kept the score as it was
with a couple of fine saves.
Once the lads
settled the fine crisp passing began again, and with five passes
starting from a short throw from Whitehouse to brown, he helped it
onto Charlwood who played it to Thompson who ran with it passing two
players rolled it into chance's surging run, who then thumped it
from 10 yards only to see it hit the cross bar.
Westbury still
had to defend but this half looked a lot sharper and was pretty much
first to every ball. Again when we broke it was done the right way
with the boys getting their heads up and looking for a team mate to
bring into the game, nothing summed this up more than when Charlwood
won the ball from the advancing Oldbury player, put his foot on it
and bought Ryan chance into the game with a simple layoff, chance
then knocked the ball out of his feet ,looked up and played a fine
cross field ball into Thompson and with Clayton making a fine run
into space, taking the defender with him allowed Thompson to beat
the last man but just couldn't quite finish what would have been the
move of the match. The lads battled for every loose ball and kept
the ball in the oldbury half and finished the game with a flourish,
with two great corners taken by Ryan Chance, Thompson ran to the
front post and hit just wide and headed over with the second.
Fulltime 0-4
Management thoughts
This was just one of those
game that just didn't go for us, I felt we were a little naive at
times and were made to pay, you lads are getting better with every
game, but the harsh reality is if we don't concentrate for the full
40 minutes and stay switched on we are going to get caught out. But
with Steve Charlwood speaking to the boys at half time .The Manager
got the boys together and pointed out all the positives in their
game in the 1st half but also told them where he thought they were
going a little wrong and to the lads credit took all this on board
and corrected it. A much better second half defensive display and an
even better attacking one.
m.o.m Ewan
Thompson, a tireless performance, working up and down the wing,
winning his tackles, great going forward and always looking to bring
his team mates into the game |
