A Clean Sheet, 3 Goals and The Flying Ravens Grounded!
" What A Difference A Week Makes "
With the home pitch unplayable by Thursday we arranged to switch the venue of today's game to Coronation Ground Hersham. Playing the top of the league team brings in itself uncertainty and apprehension and even more so when (1). They are unbeaten all Season and (2). following last weeks performance against Chessington Galaxy.
This team are definitely the talk of the league. Other teams, including Loko, have been questioning how good they actually are? 13 Games Unbeaten and 11 points clear in the league? They did beat beat us early on in the season but as results have recently shown we didn't start in this league until this Year 2016. With all these factors in mind, Matt and Gary had already made the tough decision with squad selection to keep with the same team as last week to try and make amends, and the pre-match talk emphasized the importance of repaying the faith they had placed in us.
The game did start with five minutes of pressure from the Ravens straight from kick off. Three or four attacks towards our goal, this was seeming it might be a hard 90 Minutes ahead. A final surge forward from them saw Gary make a superb slide tackle to break up their play and we gained possession of the ball. From here on in, the first half was all ours! Right away Lee played a ball through to the right where Dave was running in from and his shot on goal was just over the bar.Resulting corner taken by Dave swung out onto the Head of Hayden who's header was over the bar.
Scott was on Fire running relentlessly down the left side over lapping and crossing and pushing the team up into the oppositions half. Lee held onto the ball and passed out right to Dave who in turn crossed into the box towards Rob who again was causing their defense all sorts of problems. Ash too was hassling and chasing down balls whilst being played in by our Free flowing midfield who passed with confidence on a pitch that deserved to be passed on.
The odd ball they hit over the top towards our goal was dealt with by Mark and Neil with ease as we even passed our way out of defense through Gary to Matt to Lee then either out wide to Dave or Hayden or an awaiting Rob who's vocal performance kept us in check making sure we were tracking, holding, passing on our man, looking for the right pass etc.
On 40 minutes A Loko free kick was well taken, and hit low, by Matt, but was saved. Possession as we all know does not win games and we were starting to get frustrated as Ash's late challenge showed on one of their defenders who ending up going off. Ravens only two chances came from a late corner but their no.10 headed over and a long ball over the top was met by an out coming Tony with a little help from Scott to clear our lines.
Half Time
Half Time talks could not of went any different from last week if you tried, we were encouraging each other, we knew we had played a good half, but all this would be for nothing if we didn't keep it up. Mason came on for Gary.
We started the second half the same way we finished the first and within the first 5 minutes a superbly flighted ball from Lee found Rob through one on one and there is no way he was not gonna finish, straight past the keeper low to his right! 1-0 Great Start!
We still Passed confidently, traveled with ball well and defended well! Mason added even more energy to the game, Dave passed well to Gary who in turn played Rob in again, but this time he went around the keeper to leave him stranded out of his goal. Rob then passed unselfishly to Ash who seemed to nervously play with the ball in the box but then finished well with a shot into the roof of the goal! 2-0
The Ravens were in un-chartered territory as they tried to rally together to get back in this. That was not gonna happen today, we simply were to good for them. We started to shut this game out, as Rob became the only striker and we went 5-4-1 he picked up the ball in the middle of the park and released Mason on the left who still had a lot of work and running to do but the Lad was up for it. He ran with the ball towards goal and with some advise from his watching Dad on the side, he hit the ball well and low past their keepers right for his first goal for Loko! 3-0
All that was left now was to watch a commanding Tony, Peter Czech esc, catch a fast high ball into our box with ease! Superb Call and Take!
Ravens? More like Pigeons?
Full Time
Kingston Ravens 0-3 Lokomotiv ( Rob, Ash, Mason )
Weekly 3 Questions
Did We Deserve To Win Today? Hell Yes
Did We Put In A Shift Today? Hell Yes
Man Of The Match?
Always hard to single people out when the team performance was great. Tony ( Clean Sheet ), Mark, Neil, Scott, ( Clean Sheet and Solid Performance ) Matt, Gary, Hayden, Dave, Lee, Mason, ( Won All balls asked of them Headers and to Feet and defended as well ) Ash, Rob ( both Scored and battled hard ) EVERYONE done there Job asked of them today. Scott was really good, but this weeks award goes to Lee Mustoe. Strong in the middle winning plenty headers with some lovely passing and dribbling as well as that passion returning!
Final Thought
Pundits say let the football do the talking and by looking at this result both in relation to the opposition and the clean sheet and three goals scored it says it all about our Team. It may get boring but this shows exactly what we mean when we keep saying " We are the best team in this league ".
The pitch in my opinion undoubtedly helped us by letting us play football, but I also feel lessons learnt last week also played a big part. You were all asked to step up and show this unbeaten team that we are better than them and that's its not just in our heads! We were asked to repay Matt and Gary for their team selection and this we did!
Well played Boys, great performance this week!
Quote Of The Week
" Respect is Earned, Honesty is Appreciated, Trust is Gained and Loyalty is Returned "
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