We knew going into today's game that it was important that complacency didn't creep into our game. Unfortunately that is exactly what happened it the first half. That might sound strange given we were 5 1 up half time. However we didn’t show the form we have in recent weeks. We were slow to the ball, poor in our passing and tackling. If L Magic had taken their chances it could have been a bit different. However on the encouraging side it showed we can play less well and still finish putting the ball in the back of the net.
As the Manager I got it wrong in the first half with a different 4-3-1-2 format. We couldn’t adapt our game and the lack of width was causing us trouble as they had lots of players in the middle and up front. But we were keeping the ball in the last third. Just before half time we changed this and returned to the more common 4-4-2.
At half time I told the boys we needed to press them back up the pitch, be stronger in our tackles, composure in our passes and make sure we got the ball wide. We had to quicken our passes to unlock them easier.
Second half we score another 5 goals, but this time we did everything we asked for at half time - for me and Tom that is so great to see the boys listen and correct it.
Jack Lofts as a stand in right winger did a great job getting up and down. The boys in the middle held their shape better and this meant Joe, Liam and Jack could start to create more and more chances and do the damage with more goals.
It is so nice to see our front men chasing every lose ball and starting to compose themselves to take the opposition on. Joe had a great game getting two goals, as did Jack with a great hatrick. Will done great coming on and slotted away a great ball from the left to score a welcome goal. But my man of the match again this week has to be Liam (always difficult when he is your son) but he set up a number of goals today, controlled the game on the pitch with true captain qualities (I know he can be bossy at times) and of course scored a hatrick.
At the back we were a little shaky again at times, but in the most part did the job. Moment of the game has to be an outrageously good goal line clearance from Connor when the forward looked dead cert to score - however as it was cleared it then hit Ollie in goal and went back in the net. So unlucky, but equally very funny!
Thanks to Ollie for stepping up as goalie today as Jack was out ill.
So we will need to work harder next week if we are to get a result against Lewisham - but today's result puts us into fourth position - our climb up the table, our play on the pitch, our character makes very extremely pleased with how far we have come this season. Let's keep it up
