Old Oak battled to a 3-0 home win against a stubborn Prestwood Kites team who somewhat surprisingly lie second bottom in the league.
An oak side missing several regulars, JP, Carpenter & Shadbolt, Butler all missing along with long term injury victims Janes & Webb. The side was however boosted with the returns from injury of Matt Ing and a first start in over a month for fit again Skipper Simon Hawken. Oak set up with a 4-4-2 formation with Hawken partnering Burton at centre back and Roberts and Ing playing at full back. This allowed key man Gunnell to push into the centre of midfield alongside Ebberson in the absence of Piercey, Wilkinson and rodriguez patrolling the wings and CAC (coker & Carter) starting upfront.
The first half began with Oak taking the upper hand almost straight from kick off, Gunns and Ebbz controlling the centre of midfield and distributing the ball well, Wilkinson and Rodriguez regularly beating there men and delivering several early crosses that were well defended. On 6 minutes Gunnell exchanged passes with Rodriguez, and got to the byline before cutting the ball back to Wilkinson 5 yards from goal who could not make a decent connection. The pressure continued and following a clumsy challenge from the Kites centre back on coker, Oak were awarded a free kick 25 yards from goal, this resulted in a well struck effort from Gunnell narrowly clearing the crossbar with the keeper beaten. Minutes later Rodriguez picked up a loose ball 14 yards from goal and fired narrowly over the cross bar following a goal mouth scramble. Prestwood rarely threatened to even get out of there own half for long periods of the half and a couple of Rodgriguez corners nearly resulted in goals, Gunnell again going close with a header. The same pattern continued throughout the first half with Roberts and Wilkinson combining well down the right hand side only to be fruastrated by some good defending. Rodriguez continued to threaten and was frustrated as two crosses late in the half drifted out of play. There where just a couple of half chances for the Kites towards the end of the half a long range strike going well wide and a corner flashed through the box which unbelievably no one from either side got a touch on. Half time whistle was blown and there was some aggravation from a number of our players caused by some erratic offside calls by the opposition linesman.
The pattern of the match continued in the second half, Oak dominating possession and prestwood relying on the occasional counter attack. On 53 minutes the deserved breakthrough arrived, a scramble in the goal mouth saw a carter unselfishly square the ball to Rodriguez who calmly fired into the roof of the net past two men on the goal line 1-0. The goal gave us a much needed boost and we continued to be the better side with coker seeing a header comftably saved and Wilkinson slipping as he was about to strike goalwards following a cross from the influential Rodgriguez. On 60 minutes centre half burton pulled up with a muscle injury, he was replaced by barlow, which saw a reshuffle with Roberts pushing into midfield and Gunnell into centre back with barlow playing at right back. The second goal arrived shortly after, another goal mouth scramble saw the ball fall to Wilkinson who managed to knock it to Carter who slid the ball home to double the lead 2-0. Manager gunnell then made his second change replacing the impressive Matt Ing with Preston at full back, the pressure continued with several Oak players becoming increasingly frustrated with some decisions being made by both the referee and oppositions linesman. With 10 minutes to go ebberson ran the ball through the heart of the Kites defence and cut the ball back to the on rushing Coker for a simple tap in, however the goal was controversially ruled out for offside, several Oak players approached both the ref and linesman to change what looked a poor decision, the result of this was a yellow card for Wilkinson for abusive language. The third goal arrived with 3 minutes to go with strike partners combining, Carter laying the ball across the goal for coker to slide in his 8th league goal of the season 3-0. The remaining minutes saw Roberts replaced following and impressive performance and two Prestwood players having to be separated after squaring up to each other.
All in all a satisfactory day, it was a battle against a team that offered very little attacking threat, I am pleased with the clean sheet and its always good to see both strikers get on the score sheet. I thought everyone contributed today, however I have picked Javi Rodriguez as man of the match, having worked tirelessly up and down the left wing whilst also scoring the important first goal and creating a number of opportunities.
