TD Triumphant in Local Derby

After the well fought victory last week in a local derby, the boys knew that today's derby would be another close game.

From the off the boys took the game to Oakwood and within the first minute, Cam sent Dorian free down the right hand side before D whipped a brilliant ball across the box for Freddie to get a shot off. This deflected out for a corner but showed the intent we had going forward.

The weather took a bit of a turn shortly after this and started blowing a gale! The wind was behind us both figuratively and physically from here and we started to dominate the ball, winning battles across the pitch and creating chances down the wings and through the middle.

Oakwood defended really well with their captain putting in a brilliant performance, doing his best to try and keep up with Sam and Dorian.

With just over 10 minutes on the clock, We won the ball down the right hand side again and some quick play between Harry, Dorian and Sam ended with Dorian picking up the ball on the edge of the box. D worked the ball over onto his left foot before flicking it up and hitting a thunderbugger of a volley with his weaker foot! Unbelievable! The ball flew into the net past the diving keeper. What a goal!!

From here the boys took control even more and did their best to keep the ball pinned in the Oakwood half. Mase and Stephen were playing well down the left with Dean sweeping up anything coming towards him. Toby and Cam were talking and commanding the back line with Jack and Harry doing well in the middle playing like prime Iniesta and Busquests.
Kieron came on for his long awaited return after 7 weeks away from football. A few close chances but some strong defending kept the game at 1-0 with the Half time whistle being blown.

HT - TD - 1 - Oakwood - 0

During the half time talk the boys again were very vocal on what they wanted to get out of the game and how they wanted to play. Nigel let the boys know to stick to the gameplan and we would get the win.

With the wind blowing against us in the second half, we knew that Oakwood would take the game to us and they sure did!

Defending well from the start of the half, we needed to get the ball away after a few long balls and crosses into dangerous areas but Dean, Cam, Toby, Jack and Lewis were all monsterous in the air and in and around the box.

After winning the ball on the right hand side, Cam played the ball into Lewis who pinged a great pass across the pitch into the path of Stephen. Stephen beat his man and saw the run of Kieron in front of him and played a great through ball into the path of Kier. Kieron was strong and held off two defenders before looking up and Lobbing the ball beautifully over the top of the on-rushing keeper. Even more impressive with the wind blowing against him!

From here you could see the boys wanted to take the game to Oakwood however the gusts of wind continued to cause issues and Oakwood changed their approach and bought on some speedy attackers. Dean did brilliantly to lock down the left hand side, aided by Mase who came back on the left and Ethan did really well to step into the back line while been bombarded with long, high balls.

After about the 7th corner, we lost concentration for a split second and Oakwood scored from here.

2-1 with about 10 minutes left of the game.

From here we knew it would be a close finish again and the boys did their best and Dug in all across the pitch. Stan doing a great job running the defenders all over the place, aided by Sam and Kieron. With the wind picking up again, Nigel made some changes to personel and formation, switching to a 3-5-2 to finish and see the game out.

Some absolutely monsterous defending followed and this gave us the platform to keep the ball. Oliver was quick off his line picking up any stray long balls that were missed but the boys stuck to their jobs and saw the final minutes out to get the well deserved win!

FT - TD - 2 - Oakwood - 1

Another tough game but the boys showed fantastic character and ability to win a real game of two halves. The boys and parents should all be proud of their performance and a great stepping stone to the cup semi final next week.

MOTM- Dean Roadley - Another brilliant Display from Dean today, winning nearly every tackle, Long ball and Header that he possibly could as well as starting attacks down the left.