Sunday, December 08, 2013

Match Report: Loko vs Clapham Rovers A

Sportsman's League, 
Division 1
Sun 8 Dec 2013

Loko 1 vs Clapham Rovers 3 

LOKO MADE TO RUE MISSED CHANCES

Although King’s House charges the highest pitch fees in the league, their grounds have been rather bobbly of late and today’s surface was no exception. Yet, Loko were out of the starting blocks very early on against a team we have been playing 3 times in recent weeks.

With strikers Adil and Olie both unavailable, the task of converting chances rested with James and Terry with the latter playing in a more advanced role than in recent months. Clapham Rovers were developing a good passing game but we hit them on the counter on a few occasions.

On 15 minutes, Terry saw his effort from 8 yards out blocked by the keeper’s legs and on 24 minutes, Terry again beat the offside trap and found himself one on one against their goalie who he tried to chip but his shot didn’t go high enough and it was another chance missed.

On 27 minutes, Ed, who was capitalising on his physical presence in the middle of the park, took a shot from 30 yards out that went wide of the upright.

On 33 minutes, a corner from our left was met by one of their forwards whose shot escaped John and was goal bound but Ivan headed the ball out of danger and over the bar.

With only 7 minutes on the clock before the half time break, James went on a mazy run down his left wing, shimmied past a couple of defenders and crossed. Terry received the ball and passed it across the goalmouth to Lawrence who slid the ball towards the empty goal only for one of their defenders to rescue on or over the goal line but, short of Hawk eye goal line technology it was  impossible for the able ref to allow the goal to stand and the first half ended goalless.

Loko 0 vs Clapham Rovers A 0

At half time, Ismail was replaced by Hassan and the rest of the team remained unchanged. In the early  stages, their number 11, who skipper Mat referred to the guy “who thinks he’s Ronaldo”was causing the Loko defence constant headaches with his fast movement and skill.

On 53 minutes, as the Loko players were begging the ref to call an offside, their left winger despatched a low cross into the box which Terry tried to clear but unfortunately he scuffed it and the ball ended up in our own net.

Loko 0 vs Clapham Rovers A 1

On 70 minutes, Andre came on for Ivan and slotted into midfield as Terry retreated into defence because he was now carrying an injury. This meant that Matt had to go up front, a regular role he often relishes with his Saturday team.

Sadly, Loko conceded a second goal on 77 minutes where their nippy number 10 found himself unmarked inside the box and fired a shot from the left hand side of the box past John and into the far corner.

Loko 0 vs Clapham Rovers A 2.

Loko managed to pull one back on 81 minutes when a pass into the heart of their defence saw MATT control the ball with the heel/outside of his boot and slot past the keeper with a half volley just inside the box.

Loko 1 vs Clapham Rovers A 2

Loko rallied for a while but Clapham Rovers never panicked and, as was the case throughout the game, kept on building from the back and playing triangles, unlike Loko who too often would simply kick it upfield.

Sure enough, Clapham Rovers put paid to Loko’s hopes of a comeback as the game was coming to an end.

All in all, this was a decent first half but Clapham were better than us in the second half and deserved to win. We now have over a month before our first game of 2014 (on 5 Jan) so let’s hope  for a strong squad going into the new year.

M.O.M: No outstanding performance today but M.O.M goes to Ed who played well in midfield. Special mentions to John and Neil.

Line-up: John – Neil, Ivan (then Andre, 70’), Mark, Marcel – Lawrence, Ismail (then Hassan, 46’), Ed, Matt - Terry, James.

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