|
Date |
Sunday 13th November 2011 |
|
Match |
Royston Town Youth v Arlesey Town Youth |
|
Competition |
Royston Crow Youth Football U13 League Cup |
|
Result |
Won 3-2 |
|
Royston Scorers |
Connor S (P), Charlie M 2 |
|
Man of Match |
Ben S |
First off can I thank everyone for their kind gesture on Sunday; it’s hard to believe that 5 years have past. My Dad was a very large part of this club and would be proud to see how well we are doing today.
The game started brightly with us having plenty of possession in our opponents half and creating all of the early chances, Kye and George seeing plenty of the ball in wide areas. Connor G, making his Town debut, looked sharp and showed some good early touches linking up well with Charlie and Connor S. Defensively we looked strong and assured, Jack and Josh communicating well with both full-backs, Gareth and Ollie with Ben protecting them from mid-field. A neat interchange of passing down the right flank saw the ball fizzed into the box, as the Arlesey defence tried to clear the danger it appeared to strike the hand of the centre back and the ref had no hesitation in awarding the penalty.
Connor S strode purposely into the box, placed the ball on the spot and stroked it into the bottom left hand corner of the goal.
Soon it would be 2-nil, an interception by Josh just inside our half saw him pick a pass up to Charlie, a quick one-two with Connor and Charlie was free, with just the keeper to beat he placed it nicely into the net.
All was going well, Ellis in goal had been largely a spectator, anything he had to do was done well and he had been protected well by his teammates ahead of him, unfortunately it wasn’t to last. A mix up from a long punt up field, saw the clearance cannon off our defender and fall kindly to Arlesey, to be fair the lad still had a lot to do, but from 20 yards out he lifted it high into the top of the net. The visitors now had their tails up, they started to believe that they could get something from the match and started to press higher up the pitch. The play got more congested, we couldn’t get the ball down as we like to and struggled to keep hold of the ball, all this was now playing into Arlesey hands. The equaliser came when a clearance again fell kindly to Arlesey who’s striker gleefully accepted his gift to draw to scores level just before the break.
Adam had a lot to say during the interval and asked the team to play a little more direct than we normally like to, the idea was that if they played a high line to try and stop us from playing our style, we would try to knock the ball over their defence to push the back and hopefully make them play deeper giving us the space again. With tactical information ringing in their ears the 2nd period began. The tactical switch looked like it was working, we started to create chances once again and put pressure on our opponents, time after time a last ditch tackle, a blocked shot or a unlucky bounce thwarted our progress, when we finally manage to breach the wall, the ambiguous offside laws came to their rescue.
Then when it looked as though it would never happen, Charlie broke through with a well timed run and settled the tie. 3-2
Conclusion
Sometimes the result is more important than the performance, we like to play football in a certain way, that wasn’t possible at times. We spoke at half time of the need to “earn the right to play”, by that we meant we had to impose ourselves better, not give an inch and play for one another. By changing our approach Arlesey’s game play failed, because they needed to drop deeper WE created the space we needed therefore we were able to play more of a normal game.
Squad
Ellis W, Ollie J, Jack B. Josh S, Gareth B, Ben S, Kye B, George P, Connor S, Connor G, Charlie M, Matt T, Owen B, Mason B, Connor L
