The cup run/s continue....
Progress secured into the 4th round of the berks and bucks cup with a spirited performance against a side who we had failed to beat in 3 previous meetings. Testonmany to the quality of this years squad, gunnell made 4 changes to the side who won comfortably at Chinnor last week, Douglas(holiday), green(injured) along with rodriguez and wingfield were replaced by O'Connor, Bumpstead, Carpenter & Searing. The opening goal did not take long in coming, 6 minutes into the game centre back Matt gunnell won the ball and threaded a 40 yard ball into the path of right winger Davies who was clean through on goal and finished with the consumate ease we have come to expect for his 8th goal of the season 1-0. Liberal almost immediatly hit back through a controversial penalty, Piercey appeared to cleanly and fairly win the ball only for the ref to see it as a penalty, Summers was beaten by liberal striker Lacey 1-1. The equailiser proceeded Liberals best spell in the game and for the next 15-20 minutes, as a mixture of some good and deseparte defending kept the away side at bay. On 25 minutes we lost striker Hall to a hamstring injury, being replaced by Rodriguez who was unlucky to lose his place following some excellent displays recently. The half wore on with a lot of play being contested in the midfield, however a break away caused concern and as the liberal striker rounded summers only a superb goalline clearance from O'connor saved a certain goal. With minutes remaining of the half Gunnell won another strong challenge on the edge of our area and ran 40 yards before laying the ball off to searing who exchanged passed with Shaun coker and closed in on goal, firing in from and accute angle 2-1. With liberals defence in disaray a further half chance came in the 45 minute, when the keeper could only parry through a crowded penatly area Rodriguez lofted a shot just over the bar from 14 yards out.
The second half began with a chance almost immediatly for beacy, Davies who was a constant threat down the right hand sided combinding with searing who clipped a great ball accross which Coker narrowly failed to convert. Piercey was the next to go close when he fizzed a 25 yard shot just over the bar. With liberal showing very little as an attacking threat we continued to have the better of the play without creating many further clear cut chances. Both sides made several changes with Gunnell giving run outs to Wingfield, wilkinson and the returning dave roberts. A third goal arrived with 5 minutes remaining, following another counter attack Rodriquez saw his intial shot well saved, but had the composure to beat the keeper on the rebound 3-1. The remaining few minutes saw us proffessionally run down the clock with Coker wasting valuable time holding the ball up in both corner flags, with no more than a minute left a fruastrated liberal player kicked out and earned himself a yellow card.
Another great display, the squad this year has a lot of character, none more so than when the penalty decision went against us, last year we would have gone on to lose this game. It is fantastic as a manager to now have a squad of 18/19 players who all have made a significant contribution this year. The real challenge is to keep this up through the season and i am sure we wont be far of some silverware.
15 man of the matches today, although i have to choose one and have given it to Mike O'Connor on his full debut.
