Game 3 of the CSFA league cup saw the boys travel to the Sir Matt Busby Leisure centre to take on Bellshill Boys Club on 3g. This is yet again an unknown team for us, however looking at their previous result we were in with a sniff today. As long as the boys played at their best then we had no doubt we could get a result today. We had yet again a number of changes to the team as James Wallace (Knee injury), Dean Kelly and Ben Brown (Swimming Competition) was absent today, so we had to pull Kenny Gemmell into the back four and Jamie McT into the midfield, giving an opportunity for David Wood to start the game.
Before the game started all boys, coaches and parents observed a minutes silence in memory for Kieran McDade who passed away yesterday after collapsing at a training session at Dunbeth Football Club on Thursday. RIP Kieran.
As always the game was at stalemate due to each of the teams sizing each other out with both side looking for the break, and the first 10 minutes both teams were unable to finish their chances. On the 10 minute Bellshill broke through and put the ball into the back of the net. The game became very scrappy with both teams clearing the ball at every opportunity, rather than taking control of the ball and finding an easy pass to their team mates. Yet again we had a number of chances which we couldn’t finish and Bellshill were pulled back time after time from being offside. The passing was very sloppy today, maybe it was because we had a game two days previous and some of the boys were still tired after the game against Lenzie. On 22 minutes the boys managed to step up a gear and started passing the ball about very well, which resulted in Jamie McT picking the ball up and finding a blinding pass to David Wood who smashed into the back of the net, his first goal of the season! Unfortunately the boys couldn’t take advantage of their great play and were punished with Bellshill scoring a goal only 2 minutes after the restart, both midfielder, defense making errors to allow the opposition to take the lead! The game was against scrappy to the end of the first half and both teams had plenty of chances to score. A disappointing half for the boys of JBM!
HT 2-1
After a stern chat with the boys at the half time break and a change to the forwards saw Logan Jardine join the front line with Logan Jarvie. It looked like we were not firing on all cylinders today as our first touch wasn’t there, our pass ratio throughout the team was poor and the boys didn’t look up for it despite all the coaches and parents best efforts to get the motivated. Again both teams attacked, defended and had chances and on the 40th minutes, Bellshill managed to get through and score. The boys looked defeated, however only a minute later Calum Roberts danced through the Bellshill defense and was brought down in the box…..penalty!!! Unfortunately, Jamie McT hit the bar, and we were disappointed not to see the rest of the team to follow up on the rebound as we had an opportunity to score! The boys has some fight back in their bellies and piled pressure onto Bellshill defense, Logan Jarvie managing to get a break and hit a pile driver to the bottom right hand corner of Bellshill goal, their keeper pulled of a world class save and tipped it around the goal! This resulted in a corner however we were unable to get onto the end of it again! The boys seemed to drop off the pace again and looked tired and this didn’t help when Jamie McT was studded into the back of his knee and was carried off injured. Stewart Kennedy was brought onto the right hand side with Calum taking over Jamies role. Bellshill went onto score a further goal on 50 minutes to make it 4-1. We then changed it further due to the amount of effort Kenny Gemmell had put in today, Aron Stevenson had his chance to star on the field of play. We went to 5-4-1 as a change in formation to see if we could stop any further breaks and goals on target. This seemed to work however we had difficulities getting the boys to attack as they were too deep and Logan Jarvie had now outlet.
FT 4-1
There are many things we can take away from today’s game, fitness and teamwork. It is imperative that everyone in the team communicates to each and every one of outfield players, if you have no communication then you will get punished and they all learned that lesson today. Fitness is another factor, the boys need to concentrate in this area as it is key especially now they are playing 70 minutes of highly intensive football. I know its early and we have a lot to learn and it will take time, but we were missing a couple of key players today and we need to recruit, especially when we lose key players to injuries we need depth in the squad to back up the starting 11.
Roll on Tuesday/Thursday training. No midweek game this week so we can concentrate on our weaknesses.
