Dudley Sports 3 - 0 TS UNITS FC
The units travelled up to Dudley Sports hoping to get their first points of the season.
Once again the thread-bare squad was stretched to its limits but the first X1 that we fielded was enough to match anyone in the league.
We welcomed into the squad for the first time Andrew 'Tonka' Thompson a well-respected centre-half who the Units have always admired and wished he 'played for us'!! Leon Westwood also made his first start for the Units after his substitute appearance last week.
We lined up as:
Mozza
Luke, Tonka, Gilo, CJ
Jim, Leon, Coco
Azza
Lewis Trigger
With Si running the show today and with the limited numbers available due to work etc. The units lined up with a strange formation. Designed to sit back and soak up the pressure and hit the relatively slow Dudley Sports defence with Lewis & Trigs pace and Azza sitting in a False-9 position dictating play.
The system worked well and certainly frustrated the DS attack with all of our players defending manfully. Tonka slotted into his role very well and commanded the defence from minute one. Our midfield put in arguably the best shift of the season getting back in numbers when we didn't have the ball and trying to get into the attack in numbers when we did have it.
Using Lewis as our outlet he created some great chances for himself in the first half and was unlucky not to grab a goal.
DS had their fair share of chances but were kept at bay by the ever dependable Mozza and our defence.
There was an unsavoury passage of play towards the end of the first half that could have easily ended with the dismaissal of a DS player, but the ref decided to keep all players on the pitch much to the Units amazement.
HT Dudley Sports 0 - 0 TS UNITS FC
The message at HT was to keep doing as we did in the first half and keep it tight and hopefully sneak a goal. Legs were very tired and in an ideal world fresh legs at this stage would have made a massive difference. But as we had only Si as an option the boys were told to dig in and keep at it.
After 2 mins DS made the breakthrough with them gaining possession of the ball in midfield and playing a through ball that could well have been offside but the DS forward finished cooly.
The units heads dropped after this but we went in search of an equaliser.
Lewis once again had chances in the second half as well as Azza, if one of these had gone in it would have been game on.
The units ran out of steam completely as DS grabbed the second goal and finally their third. (sorry for the brief 2nd half description just can't remember the details.)
Game over and we move on again. The positives we can take out of the game was the fact we weren't outplayed and on another day we would have come away with at least a point, Tonka and Leon will make great additions to the squad, the commitment of the players there was great!
Man of the match went to Tonka.
