With the end of the season quickly approaching the team knew games like today are the ones that decide if you have the right to be in the race for the title. Playing against the unbeaten Romario and also the only team to beat us in the league this season, we had a score to settle.
FIRST HALF The came kicked off and took a few minutes to settle as both teams knew what was at stake, after 5 minutes thought the control of the game was clearly on our side with us creating some half chances early on. Frustrations started to creep in early within the team when the ref seemed to be inconsistent with some of his decisions when he gave a foul for Connie barging the full back off the ball yet 5 minutes later not giving a foul for exactly the same thing on Uday when he was through on goal in the opponents box. We then experienced a decision where the ref decided to give a back pass when Matt miss kicked the ball which ran to Toby who picked it up, once he had given the decision he then decided that the freekick wouldn't be taken from where the incident was but to make them take it from outside the box! On 12 minutes this led to Oscar, after being fouled when on the ball to shout out at the ref and then take it too far with some unsavory language which then led to the ref sending him off. Safe to say I don't think he will be doing that again in a hurry. This left the team down to 10 man with over 50 minutes left to play. In typical Di Stefano style the team continued to play their way and continued to control the game despite being down to 10 and still created chances. Jack T worked his way into the box twice and on both occasions poked the ball through the keepers legs and as the ball rolled towards goal the tall center back came round and cleared the ball away off the line.
Half time 0-0
The second half started in the same fashion and it became clear that with the back 4 in place Romario would not trouble our defence but we needed to find a way to break through. More chances came in the second half with Uday breaking through but just overrunning the ball to allow the keeper to steal in. Oliver also broke through after pressuring the opposition, as he seen the keep steaming out he decided to go for the lob only to see the ball narrowly go over the bar. Oliver broke trough again towards the end of the match and was 1 on 1 with he keeper but the ball was inbetween both of them and still a lot of distance to cover. As oliver reached for the ball the GK leapt out feet first to the ball came through Oliver as he poked the ball away sending Oliver over. The ref gave the free kick with Oliver being the through on goal and then gave the GK a yellow card, when in my eyes it was firstly a dangerous tackle and also the fact that Oliver would have been through on goal. We continued to push for the winner but just as the last few weeks we have failed to make the chances count. We still have 6 games to go and can still apply pressure to Halewood and Romario.
FULLTIME 0-0
POTM went to Archie who covered every blade of grass especially when down to 10 men and let our forward players focus on getting the goal.
