Southgate County II 1 - 0 UCL Academicals V

Southgate County II 1 – 0 UCL Academicals V
(Nelson)

Southgate’s second team started the new season with a few unfamiliar faces in the form of some new players to the club and some players who were in the first team squad last season. There was a bit of optimism although at the same time it wasn’t far of a new team playing together for the first time.

We started in a 4-2-3-1 formation with the idea being that we made it hard for UCL to break us down as everyone got to know each other. UCL started the stronger side and definitely looked more comfortable on the ball than us in the opening 10 minutes, regularly putting together some decent passing moves without ever really threatening Boris in goal. We then had a decent 10 minutes ourselves but each time our final pass let us down; one lovely move in central midfield involved 4 players, one touch passing from Anthony Georgiou, Declan O’Leary, Ben Thirgood and Damien O’Brien saw the latter run through, with options left in right in the form of James Thirgood and Jermaine Nelson, O’Brien played a really poor pass to waste the earlier good work. It summed up our whole first half to be honest. With about 20 minutes gone we were forced into a change, Declan O’Leary elected to spend the warm up picking up the dog sh*t on Ludgrove and consequently didn’t warm up…20 minutes in and his hamstring went, on came Robert Danso in his place. 5 minutes later and disaster struck as Danny Marchant flew into a tackle just outside our box; he got the ball but the tackle was off the ground and the referee produced a straight red. To be honest if it had been in the Premiership it would have been a red but thankfully the UCL player was fine and it is quite rare to see a red given at this level for this type of challenge. We were now up against it and UCL had their best spell of the match in the 15 minutes before half time. Boris pulled off 4 or 5 really good saves to keep us in it and we were glad to get to half time at 0-0.

At half time we said that we were in this and it was all about work rate. At this level work rate counts for so much and as Chairman Brewer said if we could stop them scoring in the first 10 minutes then they might get frustrated. We brought on Jed Glendinning at centre back and moved Narcis Pitbull into midfield and also brought on Michael Coehurst, probably the tallest full back the club has ever had, for his debut. We went to a 4-3-2 formation with Jermaine and Anthony up top, hoping their pace could exploit UCL’s back-line on the counter. From the start of the half we looked solid. Obviously UCL had most of the ball but they never really penetrated, I lost count of the amount of times they had a spell of possession before getting frustrated and attempted a through ball which ran straight through to Boris in goal. 10 minutes into the half Ben Thirgood brilliantly won the ball in midfield and played a ball through to Jermaine Nelson; the UCL keeper was rushing out and Jermaine knocked it past him before firing into the empty net from 25 yards. Against all odds we were ahead and now had something to hold on to. After 65 minutes however UCL were awarded a penalty, we felt it was harsh, if for no other reason than the referee’s view was severely blocked. Regardless Boris made a great save low to his right, but even better than that was his point-blank save from the rebound. From this point on UCL’s confidence just wasn’t there. They had lots of the ball but failed to really penetrate us at all. In fact the best chances came to us on the counter attack and we really should have made it more comfortable after creating 2 or 3 really good chances. The best was when Michael Coehurst won the ball on the edge of his box and just sprinted down the left side of the pitch, the longer he went on the more he got away from the chasing UCL defenders…he squared to Jermaine 6 yards out and Jermaine was disappointed in himself not to put the chance away.

It wasn’t pretty at all but considering it was the first time we’d played together as a team our organisation was fantastic. In some ways these type of wins feel so much better than a 5-0. The back 4 were fantastic, Michael Coehurst and Jed Glendinning were superb when they came on at half time, Ryan Kerby and Michael Mensah brilliant throughout. The midfield 3 worked really hard; Ben Thirgood definitely covered more ground than anyone on the pitch and the front 2 never gave the UCL back-line an easy get out but man of the match was definitely Boris (he got everyone’s vote afterwards) in goal, a superb double save from the penalty, lots of talking throughout, a few other solid saves and all round top sweeper-keeper. Final point was that this game really showed the importance of having a squad of 14, we used the rolling subs non- stop and without the whole 14 I’m not sure we would have got the win.

Team; Boris, Marchant, Mensah, Kerby, Pitbull, O’Brien, Thirgood B, Nelson, O’Leary, Georgiou, Thirgood J, Coehurst, Glendinning, Danso.