MUCH MUCH BETTER………….BUT !!!!!

Subs

• P.Barber for Hill

• Halloran for Powell

• Hill for Mcloughlin

This report is really difficult because I want to give a lot of praise for the way we played and the way we bossed the match against a good side.  We played all the football and looked like a top side,  BUT...….the score line says we lost comfortably.

To anybody who wasn’t at the game, well 3-0 sounds fairly convincing.  For everyone that was there you will know how unlucky we were and that with better finishing, and barring a few uncharacteristic mistakes from Ryan, we should have won 4 or 5-1.

I thought we were great for 15 minutes.  The trouble was we never scored.  Dylan, Graham and Alex all had decent opportunities.  Graham went clean through but his weak effort was straight at the keeper.  Dylan was well tackled after a strong run and Alex ran half the pitch to see his shot trickle wide.  After all this Halesowen scored with their 1st real effort on goal.  Ryan misjudged a shot and we were 1-0 down.  The 2nd goal followed fairly quickly when a good long shot from their dominant number 11 flew over in.

Graham had another chance to get us back into it but at half time we were 2-0 down.  Encouragingly in the 1st half our midfield had bossed the game, which hasn’t happened in recent weeks.  Henry and particularly Mark were both controlling the play and only a poor final ball was letting us down.  Alex had looked our most dangerous player going forward with his surging runs down the left wing.  Al was particularly impressive in this game considering it is the 1st time we have asked him to play there.

Another encouraging sign was the performance from Dylan.  He ran his socks off and his movement and pace created problems for the Halesowen defence.  I have said it before but his performances in recent weeks in matches and training are making it almost impossible to leave him out.  That is the type of attitude we need from the players on the fringe.

The defence had looked fairly sound in the 1st half although we are prone to the occasional slip up or lapse of concentration from time to time.

The 2nd half wasn’t quite as good from us as we seemed to tire and the lad’s heads had clearly dropped after being 2 down and playing so well.  We did create more chances, Paul firing the best of them wide.

Scott had a particularly good 2nd half at the back and Matt Barber again looked assured when he went in at right back.  His pace seems to help our defence out.  Mike Halloran and Paul were both lively when they went on which is a positive.

All in all a big step forward from last week.  We deserved a lot more than we got but our lack of confidence in front of goal cost us.  I take heart from the performances of Dylan, Mark and man of the match Alex and I can safely say 8 or 9 of our lads had good games.

We have a two week break in our league fixtures now but I have arranged a tough friendly for Sunday against Sutton Town.  We will be looking to experiment with 1 or 2 things this week so once again a result would be nice but I am keen to get another performance like this one against Halesowen.  But we need to add GOALS GOALS GOALS.

See you at training.

Steve