Despite an alarming second-half drop in our performance, the Lions made the most of an decent first half to start 2018 with 3 points against the team sitting behind us in third.
You know it's the first game of a new year when you have 15 players turning up on match day for the first time in weeks. Hopefully this will be a regular thing, at least for January (probably will be, because no-one's got any money left to get tanked the night before, so they might as play footy) as this was the first in a run of fixtures where we play teams in the top half of the table and who are very much our rivals for the title.
In contrast, the opposition had the bare 11, but didn't tire anywhere near as much in the second half as we might have initially thought. The pace of the game was sluggish to start with, anyway as to be expected after the Christmas break and neither team created any clear openings in the first few minutes. We had a few flashes of decent build up play, but too often we were playing it long and not getting the ball to feet. Max had half a sight of goal, when played in on the left, but a heavy first touch saw the opportunity get away from him
The first time we did play the ball out from back to front, we were rewarded with a well-worked goal. From an Albion attack, we moved the ball straight through the middle, with Ben putting Max in on goal with a nicely judged through-ball. Max finished the move with a first time shot low past the keeper to give us the lead.
There was then a flare-up between Gary and one of the oppo players that almost nobody else saw. Most importantly, the ref didn't see the oppo player smack Gary in the face not once but twice. Gary - needless to say - stood his ground and then some, but the players were separated before the altercation developed further. He was understandably frustrated that no action beyond some stern words for the pair was taken by the ref but turned that frustration into devastating action of his own.
Some time later, Gary tracked back to cleanly dispossess an oppo player a few yards outside the centre circle in the Albion half, stroll towards the goal then absolutely smash a dipping shot past the keeper from well outside the area. Great goal and no doubting there was a bit of venom in that particular effort as a result of previous events in the game.
We were denied a clear penalty when Ben's standing leg was hooked by a defender as he tried to maker space for himself in the area. Even the opposition captain said so after the match, but the ref wasn't interested at the time. We went into the break two goals to the good and encouraged by the way we had improved as the half went on. The oppo hadn't bothered us too much at the other end and we figured they'd get tired as the game went on.
The second half got off to a great start too as we went 3-up minutes into it. Si rolled back the years and went on one of his trademark runs from not just the heart of defence, but from the right side of the back 3 to end up on the left touchline deep in Albion territory. After trading a cute one-two with Gary in the corner, Si got to the byline and put in a low cross in that was converted by Ben arriving at the near post.
It was pretty much all Lions for the first 15 minutes or so of the second half. Albion had changed keepers and the new guy who had played the first half in defence did well to keep save from Gary in a one-on-one. He was actually quite decent and was certainly a lot busier than Paul in our own goal.
Egged on by an unusually vocal bench we went for more goals, with the perennial scoresheet seeker Ahmed again popping up inside the opposition area, this time finding himself in his own one-on-one with the goalie. Sadly for Ahmed, his name is still to appear amongst the scorers as the goalie calmly dispossessed him with a defender's tackle that Ahmed himself would have been proud of and cleared the danger.
It seemed to be a matter of when we would get the next goal but it was Albion who found the net with a spectacular long range effort. Albion worked their way into our area helped by a couple of misplaced passes on our part and although the ball was cleared from immediate danger, it dropped to an Albion player who hit it on the half volley over a stranded Paul into the net.
Was a bit of a wake up call, but we were caught flat-footed for their second, immediately after our third round of substitutions. One of their attackers ran through a massive gap in the centre of our defence (who were too busy appealing for a non-existent offside) to latch onto a pass from our left. Paul came out to meet him and although he made the block from the initial shot, the rebound favoured the Albion player and he was able to poke it in from close range.
From 3-0 up and cruising we were now hanging onto a one-goal lead. Although Albion never got close to an equaliser, they put us under a lot of pressure from that point. Gary had a great chance to increase the advantage but his attempt to turn in a low cross from the right at the near post cleared the bar. In the end, we had to resort to some serious "keep-it-in-the-corner" tactics to see out the last few minutes, with Lewis excelling at frustrating the opposition at the corner flag.
A slightly nervy ending to a game we should have won easily, but with those three points in the bag, we are pretty much where we want to be at the halfway point in the season.Two tough away fixtures are coming up that will really test our title credentials, so it's good to know that we can grind out the win even when we're not at our best.
