Sportsmans League Division 3
Lokomotiv Londres FC 1 v Eel Brook Rangers 3
Better Perfomance, Now Need Results!
It was a much more committed performance from Loko on a sunny but blustery morning at Riverside Lands in Chiswick. A good twelve turned out but a late cancellation and a no show didn't help the cause.
Loko were shooting up the slight hill and against the wind in the first half and it showed as we started quite slowly and struggled to clear out half. It was always going to be a physical battle as the opposition are not the most free flowing, and play to their strengths which are organisation and counter attacking.
They had an early effort at goal which deflected against the bar and shortly after, their striker turned and played in his partner who shot wide when attacking from the angle. Loko got Peggy away down the right and he skinned two players, drilled it across the box but no one could get on the end of it.
Rangers opened the scoring with another avoidable goal, as the striker turned and managed to wriggle past three players who all failed to put in a tackle or put their body in the way, he shot towards the bottom corner and only scored as the shot bobbled out of Terry's reach.
The second came and was also avoidable, the ball trickled into the area from a corner, Loko had two chances to swing a foot and clear the ball but only got it to the edge of the box where it was drilled through a crowd of players into the bottom left hand corner.
It was good to see that Loko didn't fold and got one back five minutes before half-time, nice play between Roger and Vincent in midfield saw the ball into NICOLAS, he played a one two with Dave, ran through under pressure from the defence and slotted past the keeper.
Half-Time Loko 1 v Eel Brook Rangers 2
The railwaymen came out swinging in the second half and were all over Rangers for a full twenty minutes, at the back Dale and Ismail had the forward under control and it looked to be only a matter of time before the equaliser came.
Loko felt that they should have had a penalty when Dave turned his man on the left hand side of the area and chased the ball to the byline, the covering defender ignored the ball and flattened Dave to the floor, it was as blatent a penalty as it is possible to give but the referee said no and Loko have still not been given a penalty all season.
Shortly after Peggy skinned his man yet again down the right hand side and played a ball across the face of goal but the defender beat everyone to the ball and hit it over his own crossbar. Twice Loko won headers from consecutive corners but the ball fell kindly for the defence or the goalkeeper to clear their lines.
Dale had covered well at the back and Rangers had not had a look in on goal, but on a rare attack, Vincent chopped down the man right on the corner of the box and the referee gave the penalty, which just rubbed salt in the wound from not giving us one earlier, it probably was a penalty but so was Dave's.
The Eel Brook player stepped up and hit it right into the corner, with Terry only inches away after diving the right way. Nelson came on for Andy and slotted in at centre back with Ismail moving onto the left wing.
Loko heads dropped a little and this allowed Rangers back into the game, twice Dale made last ditch covering slide tackles to keep the ball out and at one stage Nelson, Stefano and Vincent all followed the ball, neither won it and they had two players run through but the striker hit it over the bar when he should have done better. Another couple of scrambles ensued in the Loko area but they didn't really look like adding a fourth.
Late on Loko had another penalty shout when a long throw into Roger saw the defender get his arms over his shoulders and drag him backwards but Loko were never going to be given a penalty during this game of football.
Dave and Nicolas had late shots blocked by good defending and if it wasn't for a couple of sloppy early goals conceded and lack of a blatent penalty which would have put us at 2-2 we could and should have come away with so much more.
Final Score Loko 1 v Eel Brook Rangers 3
Manager Dale Mellor's comments:
"So so so much better than previous weeks, more desire and at times some great interplay between ourselves. We probably only won about 40% of the 50/50 balls and that's where we lost that game, we still need to be more competitive. We have some big strong players back next weekend, so we'll see what happens."
Team Line Up
1. Terry
2. Stefano
3. Ivan
4. Ismail
5. Dale
6. Vincent
7. Peggy
8. Roger (c)
9. Nicolas
10. Dave
11. Andy
12. Nelson (Replaced Andy 65th Minute)
Goals
Nicolas (1)
40th Minute - One two with Dave on the edge of the box and a slotted finish past the keeper.
Man of the Match
Peggy (pictured above) - Thought he had the beating of the full back and the centre back all morning, very good game. Honourable mention for Nicolas who played well again with a good goal, and I don't do this often but to Dale (myself) as well who put in tackles and headers all afternoon.
Match Report by Dale Mellor.
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