We took up this friendly at short notice & if we're all being honest, we expected to win - it just proves the fact that you should never take things for granted !!!
Alex was carrying an injury so Kayde got his opportunity to clock up some game time for us this morning, great committment. Flynn was tied with a Sunday match already & Joe was also missing due to illness so we were missing 4 suqad players including Carl (long term injury). With a few missing it gave a chance for some of the other lads to stake a claim in the starting line-up.
Redhouse starting very well, they were obviously fired up as they challenged every ball & hassled every player on the pitch, they didn't give us a second on the ball. This I feel knocked the lads right out of their comfort zone and played right into the hands of Redhouse. We were second to every ball and struggled through the first half. Kayde showed some great technique in goal but could do nothing about the goals that followed in the half - four of them to be precise. We were 0-4 down at half time & could have no complaints. Redhouse wanted it more & battled like their lives depended on it. We, on the other hand looked a little tired, probably a little jaded from yesterday's hard match against Hebburn.
We had a chat with the lads at half time and were forced to change our formation to 4-4-2 to add a bit more pace at the back. The lads were obviously a little bit down but we gave them lots of positives and they were up for the 2nd half.
We looked a lot better in the 2nd half and Redhouse were tiring and couldn't keep up the relentless pace they set in the 1st half although they still worked really hard. We created a few more chances and James got us a goal back on 50 mins with a tidy finish. I felt if we could have got a 2nd goal soon then we might have had a chance to get back in it and Redhouse might have buckled but we got caught with an unfortunate 5th goal against the run of play - we probably could have cleared the ball better and this allowed their player to get in a shot which was brilliantly save by Kayde but their player reacted very quick to knock in the rebound. A few mins later Redhouse made it 6 with a speculative effort from distance which too high for Kayde to reach - it was hard to take at that stage as the lads had worked their socks off in the 2nd half so these 2 goals were a cruel blow. To their credit, the lads never gave up and battled on and got a 2nd goal when Mete got on the end of a cross and chested the ball into the net.
Man of the Match - Owen Rooks - I had a little chat with "Rooksy" after the match & he knows he's been a bit inconsistent at times this season but today he put in a great effort. He chased after everything and hassled and battled. The quality of his finishing suffered a bit today but his work rate was awesome and I'd love to see more of this over the rest of the season - well done.
In Summary - a shock to the system and a bit unexpected but if I'm being honest, I think having looked at our last 2 or 3 matches we haven't been as dominant or fluent in the way we've played football compared to earlier in the season & a defeat at some point was on the cards. It's a learning curve for us all & certainly gives us something to think about tactically. Some of teams we've played lately have noticeably improved since we last played them and it's probably been hard for us to improve as we can only play against the side that's in front of us. We're certainly going to get tested a lot more in the Prem for the rest of this season and it's going to tell us if the players are going to be able to compete at the higher level.
We have a good team talk after the match - it was important to keep up the lad's spirits and I'm not the type of coach to give the lads a hard time after a defeat. To be fair to the lads, I think quite a few of them would have loved to continue to play on as they were determined to get back inot the match - great attitude :) The lads were also asking for a re-match so they obviously want an opportunity to put in a better performance - well done lads, we'll all learn from this game.
