Slow start but deserved win.

Our fifth league game of the season, and we looked to continue to try to play in the style we have been of late.
However a game against our local rivals was never going to be an easy affair, it's was always going to take a lot of effort to prevail. Unfortunately, too many of the boys started this game in their comfort zone.

The comfort zone is not a place for young footballers to rest. There's no parking spot worth having.

So fortunately for the second game of 3, we went behind and got a reaction. A positive one.
Spelthorne had started brightly, looking to get forward as much as possible, however never really showing the quality to cause us any problems.

So we had to shuffle the pack and get a bit of bite into midfield and centre back and hope for a reaction. Which we got. The goal we conceded was a response to how easy it had been for Spelly to get toward our back four. An innocuous foul, no intent, in fact no real foul and good 30 yards out, so should have been no real problem. However a dodgy bounce caught Joe out and it was fumbled into the net.

We'd already taken control of the game and the goal was now against the run of play, so it was easy to see that we were going to react in the right way, and boy did we.
A move which involved 6 players moving the ball forward very quickly whilst traversing across the pitch completely open Spelthorne up and Jake had an easy opportunity from the edge of the box.

The pressure continued until the end of the half and into the second period. With a number of chances coming but never really looking to be converted. Spelthorne's captain and centre back was having a stormer.

Yusuf put us ahead with a free kick from a similar distance, however there was no bouncing this, as he floats this all the way, beating the keeper easily and hitting the roof of the net. This should have been the chance to open up a little as Spelthorne had to know play a little more openly, which they did, but our lacklustre defending was back. In fact a poor tackle gave them a penalty, a clear one, however the ref was going to make another big mistake. Perhaps this one balanced the shocking offside given against ass when he was clear through in the first half. He awarded a free kick outside the box, and the opportunity went begging.

Shortly after Joe handled outside the box and the free kick ended similarly, just before Jake finished at the far post to wrap the game up. Alfie broke away on a solo run from his own half when one of their defenders tried to trip him and injured himself in the process, so in professional football we may have been looking at 2 reds in a matter of minutes, fortunately sense prevailed.

The stronger team won. More organised, better opportunities but it could have been different. Spelthorne arguably deserved something out of this game, but let's face it, you don't lose a game because a ref makes a bad decision when your a goal down. You have to make it happen, which we did and the quality of our first two goals deserved to win the us game.

So that's it for a couple of weeks with cup games ahead. 5 wins out of 5 in the league, 10 wins out of 10 overall suggest our methods are working, they seem to be, but this was a big reminder that nothing is easy, anything worth having has to be worked for.
Lessons learned. Hopefully!!!!!!!