This report will not make any referance to the fact we had 11 only lads turn up and several last minute sunday morning drop outs in key positions with weak and frankly lying excuses................also Ren had to go in goal (fair play ren!) plus stuey and myself were injured but played 90 mins regardless......
Despite having no subs the starting 11 looked confident and well balanced across the park at kick off. This lot had thumped us 7-1 previously so as last week we setup not to conceed with a 4-5-1 formation. Pitch was very slick but not to boggy to start with and from the off Engine fc were passing the ball around nicely and getting stuck in. The team spirit from the off was the best this season and we were on top all half. The defence were struggling with aerial balls due to the sun and slickness of the pitch but by keeping in formation threats were kept to a minimum with stand in keeper Ren doing a first class job of marshalling the defence and commanding his area. Saints were looking to use their wingers but again the defence was equal to their runs and around 25 mins into the game Engine started to have a lot of dominance down the right with Yanic and Andy C passing the ball around nicely. Steve and mini moff both showed their usual bite in the middle of the park and the ever busy idi was covering a phenominal amount of ground. Idi had a good chance to score one on one only to run out of space and get closed down.
Saints were starting to in fight I think purely because of the suprise that the Engine wouldnt be rolling over, Their keeper was keeping them in it to be honest, stuey had a good chance as did Idi and Andy C. Last weeks reluctance to shoot had gone and we were starting to cause problems. We also looked strong in the air and all spectators would agree Engine were the better side by some margin at half time.
Stueys hamstring had now gone and he was reduced to basically walking around but with no subs we couldnt replace him so put mini moff in centre back, moved stuey out to right side and yanic in the middle. This actually seemed to make us better going forward and surely it was only a matter of time before engine struck.
Second half kicked off and a slow five minutes was soon erradicated and we were having success down the left , a few neat passes put andy c through who composed himself and slotted the engine in front. a few mins after kick off saw idi go one on one but for some reason the engine messi decided to try a drift past the outrushing keeper instead of simply finishing Saints off , keeper got down well. chance gone
Saints started to get back into the game and engine were basically playing with 10 men and tiring on a now boggy pitch. A long throw from the right was flicked on a good headed finished say Saints pull level. Engine were still the better team.
As has been the way recently we are a very unlucky (if not cursed !) team ! A deflected through ball between our centre backs and the suspected offside attacker lobbed ren to put sainst 2-1 up, unbeleivable and so against the run of play. Time for engine to dig in. I still honestly thought we still win, they were no better than us in any area .
At 2-1 down steve curled a free kick in brilliantly only to see de ja vu from last week and the ball hit the bar and bounce out
Another fluked / deflected high ball looped over ren to put Saints 3-1 up. We still had chances to draw level after that and kept pushing till the end.
Engine 1 Saints 3, cant really pin point how this happened only to say we were so the better team .....
So what have we learnt this week.....
- We have spirit !
- We can take so many positives from yesterday going forward into 2013
- Saints knew (as bishops tatch did last week) that they were lucky.
- We kept our shape going forwards and backwards, this really helps us defensivly
- Im not going to pick on any negatives this week, the effort put in was phenominal and we should all be proud.
- With the players we have available at the moment 4-5-1 works better for us.
- PUE and onto 2013 ! I honestly beleive we can survive this league
- Idi gets MOM for his workrate and effort at tracking back even though he should have scored two ;-) Special mention to Ren (going in goal and doing a great job) and Yanic (again workrate)
