Welcome back!! After England's exploits in the World Cup and 4 games into the Premiership season it was our term to kick off the U11 season. We welcome a couple of new players to the team in Lucas Foster and Jack Carter and hope they enjoy their football and being part of the team. We have several new challenges to contend with this year, going to 9-a-side, playing on much bigger pitches and after the wonderful achievement of last season winning Division 5 we found ourselves promoted 3 divisions up to Division 2!!
In perfect conditions we played a new opponent in AFC Whitchurch and despite the step up in divisions and missing a couple of regulars the two teams were very evenly matched. Both teams had lots of passion and endeavour, however looked rather rusty with a number of misplaced passes and often scrappy play. The new players (Lucas and Jack) started well showing no visible nerves. With Connor marshalling the new three man defence and Jeff battling for everything Whitchurch were limited to long range shots and with the safe hands of James in goal there were few scares in the first half. We struggled to get our passing game going and did not really trouble Whitchurch other than a couple of half chances in the first half.
The first action of note was self inflicted by us when unfortunately Jack on debut handled in the area and the ref pointed to the spot. However, cometh the hour, cometh the man and James stood big in goal and saved the penalty!!! From there on both teams showed more attacking invention we looked dangerous on the counter and Sam S was unlucky with a smart lob. What let us down was our final ball in the final third, Thomas, Finley and Oliver made great runs, but took on one too many players when the through ball or lay off was the better option.
The game was more open as the players started to tire from their excursions of a bigger pitch and longer games and unfortunately on the back of some substitutions and a tactical change by myself that did not work we lost our shape. With only 6 mins the deadlock was broken, their right winger managed to battle his way through some tired challenges and he hit a terrific shot hard and low in the bottom corner.
We changed the line up and pushed for an equaliser, however in our keenness to push forward we were caught offside several times and Finley could not quite find the power in his shot to beat the keeper after our best phase of inter play. The result was put to bed with a lob/shot that dipped over James in the final seconds of the game after a scramble on the edge of the box.
For those who watched the match there was very little between the sides and a draw or 1-0 defeat would have been a fairer score. However, I don't think we did ourselves justice today and I know we can play much better. We were not outplayed at all and considering we were playing in a much higher division we did not look out of our depth. The debutantes did well, Connor had a strong game in defence as did Jeff in central midfield. However, James was MOTM for his outstanding performance in goal, saving a penalty and being assured and brave in goal.
It will be a steep learning curve for myself and the players, but I saw signs today that we can hold our own in this division and have a really good foundation to build on.
