Another Great performance

Life in tier 1 was never going to be easy facing the best U10 teams in the county on a weekly basis but the lads are getting better and better week on week.

The lads are starting to learn how to break down tough teams, the need to be a bit more patient in our build up, to not be scared to invite pressure in our own half and to pick the right forward balls when the space has been created. Historically we have always looked for forward options and not considered sideways as an option nor have we looked to go backwards when required.

We've worked a lot lately on building possession, creating space using lay offs and drawing in the opposition.

Today there were some fantastic examples of going forwards patiently by using lay offs and Callum found himself well served as our lone front man, with the left and right mids in support with CM sitting slighly deeper and this resulted in a very large number of opportunities being created in front of goal.

Nobody would question that the man of the match today was the opposition keeper and without him the scoreline could have been very positive for us. He is by far the best keeper we have faced this season.

We had a few scares in the first half with Daniel making a couple of excellent stops himself with both keepers starring. 1 did find it's way in unfortunately but at the break the lads were very upbeat and deserved to be.

Kudzai has become a rock of a defender and alongside Clark formed a very strong back line. Nathan H and Nathan S also had very strong spells at the back. We were very disciplined defensively today.

In the 2nd half we moved Josh into goal from his central midfield role. Josh's passing today was very good and he set up a number of opportunities but we felt we needed a more physical presence in the centre. Daniel moved into a centre left position with Sam and Jake sharing the CM role and Dexter centre right . Kudzai and Clark/Nathan were urged to alternate moving into a CDM role to give us more men in the centre of the park and the lads dominated the 2nd period.

Unfortunately, we were caught out twice and despite Josh making a couple of great fingertip stops we conceded a couple more whilst trying to level ourselves, both against the run of play.

I don't think we could have thrown much more at the opposition keeper but he is clearly worth his weight in gold and was the key difference between the 2 sides. Dexter and Callum saw their efforts saved time and again, Jake saw one go just wide when in other games they would be wheeling away to celebrate, Daniel played some exquisite football on the left, breaking up and recycling play time and again and also saw himself thwarted by their keeper a few times. Kudzai and Clark where very strong at the back as were the 2 Nathan's when they were on the field. Clark really put his body on the line today, so much so he had to come off injured but even then he wasn't giving up.

Nathan H himself showed great composure on the ball today and it was so nice to have him back playing. He himself recycled play beautifully and really took some ownership today, demonstrating a long throw that we will have to use more often.

Nathan S badgered away up front and showed his versatility when I swapped him from forward to defence.

Sam had a very good game too today, battling, winning possession and beating his man regularly. Sam and Callum combined very well with a bit of keep ball to create space to advance when under pressure in defence on a couple of occasions.

But that's enough about individuals though as today was a team performance yet again. The lads were so disciplined in formation, alert and rarely 'switched off' today. We moved the ball forward as a unit and defended as a unit. Decision making was great and all the lads passed their individual mini targets I set them before the game!

I'm really proud of them all. Today I saw a heck of a lot of what we have been working on in training on display. We need to keep believing and keep being positive as I can start to see things falling into place now!

Well done everyone