Thoughts On Kettering Game

Second part of the update. Kettering at home! We went into the game byont from our Trophy exploits although the games had taken their toll on our squad. Lewis Endacott and Ryan Lockett out with injury(groin and Hamstring) along with Chris Watters who was unavailable. Craig Hammond, Ross Collins not fully fit and Dave Theobald still out we were down to the 'Bare Bones!' To add to these woe's I received a phone call from Dominic Russo stating he had got sent off playing for Boreham Wood's U21's!! Well it kept me busy on Friday night that much I can tell you but we went into the game very positive against the table toppers! I brought in Ron Yates, my old keeper from Takeley FC who had recently moved to Waltham Abbey but hadn't played due to them going on a unbeaten run.

I brought back George Powell into the defence replacing Lewis and started Gary Hart on the right replacing Ryan.

We started brightly enough and created several reasonable chances. Unfortunately our finishing wasn't up to its recent high level and we squandered chance after chance never really troubling their goalkeeper. All the while Kettering not particularly creating much but the two real efforts, where one they scored from the other testing our new keeper was a credit to their front two!

So into the second half and all to do! Playing up hill against the wind was a pain but the attitude all the lads displayed was fantastic. We got ourselves back into it with a great set play by Kaan Fehmi headed in by Gary Hart. We had pushed to get back into it so now we reverted to a 4-4-2 formation with Reece Dobson impressing on the left hand side of midfield. We didn't sit back on anything and kept taking the game to them but unfortunately on one of our attacks Kaan got caught on the ball releasing their fresh substitute who took his chance very well!

Even then we still took the game to Kettering. A penalty decision which in my opinion was a stone-waller went against us then a Craig Hammond loop towards goal brought an excellent save from their keeper.

In my opinion we more than matched them in nearly every department bar the finishing but there was loads of positives to come from the game from our perspective. I have looked at Kettering's games up to playing us again on the 13th December. They have a real task with playing not only Barton but Hanwell and Aylesbury so may drop a few points by the time we play them again!!

I feel there's loads of football to be played but these next two months will be crucial!!

Everyone keep the faith and the belief. The lads are still very up beat so getting back to winning ways against AFC Hayes is so important!

Cheers,
SC