Happy New Year, everybody!
The Lions had to settle for yet another draw as a poor first half and a stubborn Old Boys defence almost proved insurmountable before Scott Bennett once again stepped up to equalise for us right at the death.
Line-up:
Paige (GK)
Danny (RB), Matt R (CB), Phil (CB), Ollie (LB)
JP (CM), Lee (CM), Richard (CM)
Gary (RF), Scott (CF), Kevin (LF)
We'd beaten Epsom & Ewell Old Boys 7-1 in a pre-season friendly, but that was a long time ago and this game was essentially a battle for third, possibly second place. With Simon unavailable for a second consecutive game (this week he was at the panto apparently!), the defence was sorely missing his leadership and steadiness on the ball as we were constantly under the cosh for the first half. A lot of passes went astray as we lacked composure on the ball all over the pitch and we struggled to get through the Old Boys defence. We had very few chances on goal in the first half: Gary drove a low shot wide of goal, Richard flashed a shot wide, a couple of other attempts came to nothing.
At the other end, it was all long balls over the top, which had us constantly running backwards and clearing from the edge of our area. In terms of shots on goal, the oppo didn't create many chances of note from open play, although Paige did well to save a point-blank header. We defended well in terms of breaking up their attacks on the edge of our box, but it was always with an air of desperation and too often the ball was coming straight back. Having said that the oppo didn't make the most of their chances to get the killer ball in that would present them with a clear shot at goal. What undid us were the silly fouls around the penalty area that gave the oppo too many free-kick opportunities. It was from one such free-kick (conceded by Lee I think) that they scored, although it was pretty unfortunate for JP that his attempted interception of the ball in merely sent it arcing backwards over Paige and into the net.
We tried to get ourselves back into the game but we couldn't seem to find each other with our passes. As JP said at half-time, we were too far apart and creating massive gaps betwen defence, midfield and attack which were being taken up by the oppo. We badly needed to step it up in the second half as we had been second best for most of the first and we did just that.
The first 10 minutes after the break, we were all over them and had them penned in their half. We still had to watch out for their long ball counter attack though and Matt distinguished himself with a terrific last-man sliding tackle at the edge of the area, taking the ball away from an attacker clear through on goal. Yours truly had his own last-man saving tackle to make as well, making up a few yards on their attacker to nick the ball away then follow up to see it out for a throw. That was pretty much the pattern of the half: us applying concerted pressure without getting any clear-cut shots on goal, they would break with a long ball and we would be tracking back, clearing the lines and building the attack again.
They so nearly added a second when they got a cross in from our right that was first headed onto the bar and then the rebound headed just over by the same player on the follow-up. But we continued pressing for the equaliser with the entire oppo defending in the penalty area at times and we finally got it with barely a minute to spare. I won the ball just inside our half and instead of booting it upfield for a change, I just knocked it forward to Gregg. He moved it onto Scott who somehow manged to battle and jink his way into the penalty area through three players and then toe-poked a shot past the onrushing keeper into the bottom left corner.
It was such a relief to get that goal and it's a precious point that keeps us moving up the table. Other results today mean that we only go into third, three points behind Newdigate with a game in hand, which we effectively play next week against Surrey Wanderers Reserves. That's the only league fixture as everybody else is playing in a cup, so we will have caught up with our fixtures. We host Newdigate the week after, so it's essential that we get the goals flowing again to improve on our start to the New Year.
