Managers Report
This was the game that almost never was due to paddling pools on the pitch. But due to the awesome brush power of Simon Wright & captain Ben Illingworth the game went ahead. The final result made me so glad that the match did get the go ahead.
I believe the power of 'How to coach a football team' given to myself by Ian Rugg inspired this win so i take all the credit. That was a joke, it was purely down to the efforts of the players.
From the first minute there was an air of belief running through our side that the game was there for us. The middle of the pitch was heavily bogged down and wide play was the only option to move the ball quickly. This was only ever going to benefit one team and that was ours. This was exactly how we set up and culminated with some excellent running from Tony Nathan.
The first goal came early on from a scramble in their area that eventually fell at the feet of "I don't go out Saturday nights" Ross Deegan. He hit an excellent left footed drive into the keepers bottom left hand corner.
The second goal quickly followed with a defence splitting through ball from Ben Baker that was finished off by Deegan. The timing of his run to avoid being caught off side was class!
We then made our only mistake in the game when a through ball right through the centre of our defence was finished well by the opposition. This then led to a 10 minute spell of panic & misplaced passing which would normally see us lose control of a game, but the team has an improved mentality & belief running through it and after a bit of shouting from myself and players communicating impressively we soon recovered control of the game. This was mainly due to the excellent display & work rate of Illingworth & Ryan Butt.
The third goal came from a great pass from Illingworth to Nathan who finished well. This then led to some impressive passages of play with Wright & Deegan’s movement playing a big part in space being created in the oppositions half. We moved the ball very well & as the first half was coming to a close, the fourth goal was scored by Deegan with a well-placed drive into the keepers bottom right hand corner. This gave Ross a first half hat trick combined with 20 goals this season.
The 2nd half started the same as the 1st & even a couple of well worked set pieces by the opposition couldn't get through a back four consisting of the ever reliable Rob McCarthy, Baker, Ian Rugg and some guy who looks like Tony Hadley/Human League. Again I will also have to mention how good the centre midfield pairing was on this day as prevented the opposition from having any time on the ball in the entire 90 minutes.
The 5th goal came from a through ball by Deegan for Nathan who after finishing well did a Didier Drogba whilst giving it the large with cramp. This led to James coming on & was soon amongst the goals after Joe who hadn't been given much of the ball put over a perfect cross when called upon for James to finish brilliantly.
That made it 6-1 with little time left but there was just enough time for Simon to get a well deserved goal after running onto a high ball and lobbing the keeper for 7-1.
This was the kind of display that we should be producing week in week out & is certainly the level I NOW EXPECT. All the good work though means nothing if we do the usual bad following good performance, which is why we are 3rd & not 1st this season.
Given that Carshalton Village are 1st in the league this result was fantastic. They certainly caught us on a day when everything went right. But in all fairness to Carshalton Village they are missing their two best players due to long-term injuries but they still set up very well. They are a very hard team to get a result against & certainly do not make it easy to beat them 7-1.
