Dominant Reds book their spot in the Next round of the Cup

After a tough game last time out down in Brighton against Hollingbury, The TD boys knew that today was going to be an opportunity to get back on the Win Column.

Looking at the pitch upon arrival, we noticed that the grass was long and meant that we would need to make sure that our passes were strong enough to reach.
Starting strong line up wise, Nigel looked to keep the formation as balanced as possible with the rotations made.
Patcham came out strong and looked to hit us on the long ball with their number 10 running at us quite a bit but Toby, Cam and George held strong and Oliver was out like a rocket in the box to get to the ball.

Another slightly slow start but we wanted to get the ball down and pass around Patcham's defence which we started to do with Dorian, Zack, Stephen and Kieron getting wide and running at the Fullbacks.

A few close chances but nothing clear cut until Dorian run through and tried to whip a cross in that was eventually cleared out for a corner. From the corner, Stephen played it short to D, who returned the pass for Stephen to whip it in. The ball was knocked back out to Dorian who cut the ball back to Harry on the edge of the box who took a pop shot only for the ball to fall back to him on the half volley which he struck sweetly into the bottom left corner of the goal. Harry's first goal for TD and lovely to see the boys run over to celebrate with him!

A few minutes later, Dorian and Zack caused chaos down the right hand side and played some lovely football round the defence before D was taken down around 5 yards outside the box. Stephen stepped up and whipped in a left footed free kick into the bottom left hand corner again. Not a bad free kick!

The waves of attack kept coming with Jack, Harry and Toby winning the ball in the middle and having Cam and George playing some great passes to the wing. Every time we went forward we looked like we were going to score!

With 15 on the clock, Zack played a great ball through to Dorian who beat his man, Cut back and popped in a cross to Kieron. The keeper came flying out and Kieron did so well to knock it past the keeper and played in a cross to the middle which was met by Stephen on the Volley (Shinned it) into the bottom right corner. 3-0 and well deserved.

Again shortly after, the ball was won at the back by George and played up to Stephen on the left who beat his man and played a ball through to Kieron. Kieron beat his man and held off the 2nd defender before finishing low and hard past the keeper at his near post.

The game got a bit scrappy at that point and it took a little while for us to get back on the scoresheet. With Jack winning it in midfield, he looked to spread the play as much as possible and from a Patcham goal kick, he won the ball, played a quick ball out wide to Stephen. Stephen cut inside, beat a man, then played a trivela pass through to Dorian. Dorian made a great run and finished past the onrushing keeper into the back of the net!

A quick mention about Stan, he had been brilliant linking up play and setting up Kieron and Dorian to have chances and got so unlucky with 2 dubious disallowed goals. The lino seemed to be a bit trigger happy with the flag. Stan hit a wonderful finish into the top corner but was cruelly ruled out.

With about 5 minutes left of the half, Zack won the ball on the right and played a quick pass through to Dorian who ran past 2 players and whipped another ball into the middle for Kieron to latch onto and finished calmly past the keeper again! A fine finish!

HT
PATCHAM- 0 - TD - 6

Although we were dominating the game, the passing was still a bit sloppy and it was the boys who pointed this out at Half time, stating that they needed to sort this out and more goals would come our way!
Nigel made some changes with Ethan, Charlie, Lewis, Mase and Freddie coming in for Cam, Toby, Harry, Zack and Stan.

The second half started slow again but we continued to be on top. Chances were coming but a lack of cutting edge in the final 3rd slowed down the goal return.

It took around 10 minutes for us to get the next goal. Ethan won the ball off the attacker on the half way line before playing a ball over the top for Dorian. Dorian beat his man, then another defender and another one before being through on goal on the right hand side. D looked up and hit a shot low and hard past the keeper at his near post. Great finish.

This seemed to wake us up a bit and from the kick off, we won the ball back and worked it down the left side through George and Mase. Mase drove at the rb and looked up and dinked a lovely pass over the top into the path of Kieron. Kier held off his defender before rounding the keeper and with an open goal at his mercy and a hat trick in his sights, Kieron decided he would square the ball to Stephen so he could get his first ever Hat Trick with an easy tap in! What a fantastic gesture and show of sportsmanship from him.

Some more changes were made with Stephen, Kieron and Jack coming off and Harry, Stan and Zack getting back on for some time. George would come off shortly after for Cam to get back on.

Another scrappy period of the game with a lot of long, high balls and some 50/50 tackles in midfield was changed when Patcham's midfield was given a yellow card and 8 minute sin bin meaning they were down to 10. From the free kick, Lewis placed the ball down, Kicked a chunk of long grass out the way and then hit a fantastic shot into the top left corner past the diving keeper.

The boys did so well to control the game and did their best to get more goals however the Patcham keeper then turned into Prime Neuer and started saving shots, left right and center!

It was a great bit of play on the right hand side between Charlie, Ethan and Zack ended with Zack looking up and whipping in a fantastic ball into the box only for it to be caught between the defenders arm and thigh. Penalty.

Dorian stepped up and after ignoring their vocal linesman trying to put him off, calmly placed the ball into the bottom right corner and proceeded to SHHHHHHHHH the lino with his celebration!

FT

PATCHAM- 0 - TD - 10

A fantastic showing from the boys and a great confidence booster after last week. Onto the next round of the cup against a DIV 2 side in Hollingbury. Every lad played their socks off today. Again more reasons why this group of boys are a fantastic team!

MOTM- Dorian - A close one with 2 Hat Trick hero's today but Dorian did not stop running, and also got a Hat trick of assists!