Under 11's. Division 5. Home v Inter Macc

Result - Reddish North End 0 Inter Macc 1

Today - Well it took us again, 20 minutes to get going. We lost this game to a soft goal in the first half.
Aaron made a good save and the ball was trickling past the post when an Inter player stuck out a foot and stabbed it in. 

First half was all Inter Macc, but we did have a couple of good chances, It didn’t take Inter long to work out where the threat was and spent most of the match trying to keep Nathan and Lewis out of the game, absolutely nothing wrong with that but a couple of referee decisions should have gone our way.
Nathan was through on goal 3 times in the first half, twice their big defender pushed him off the ball with an outstretched arm!
Shouts of  “referee, are we playing Rugby here”. 2 clear fouls and we got nothing. The third one, Nathan turned the defender in the box and left him wrong footed, he stuck his foot out and took him down, again no foul? There were a few legs flying in on Lewis Marley who was causing problems on the left side of our strike force aswell.

We did have to work hard defending most of the first half but again this was due to us taking 20 minutes to find our feet. But credit where its due and Inter deserved to take the lead, they were the better team first half.

Second half was ours for 90% of it, Inter got a few breaks which was going to happen with us pressing forward, but our defence held them well and our Midfield players getting back to help out. Brandon was outstanding for us again at the centre of our back line with some crucial tackles, and not forgetting a free kick we were given about 25 yards out, Brandon smacked it cleanly but just over the bar.
 
Our goalkeeper Aaron, in the words of our coach Ian - "could have gone for a brew" this half because he had nothing to do.
We had much more energy about us this half and started to show what we have done in previous games and beaten good sides.
We put loads of pressure on Inter and the game was pinned in their half, we had a few goal mouth scrambles that just needed a finish. Again the Inter defender used an outstretched arm to push Nathan off the ball when clear on goal with just the keeper to beat, everyone saw it but the referee called it "shoulder" (it was the third time and was a terrible decision)
 
There were a few promising moments going forward when there was a goal to be had but we were caught offside, something we need to work at as it happened quite a few times. Josh, Nathan, and Lewis M had their fair share of chances which went wide or were saved by the keeper. In the last minute Nath had a shot from 15 yards, it was looping over the keeper but he just got his fingers to it, 2 inches more and it would have gone in, and only what we would have deserved. 

The boys worked their socks off in the second half, Connor had a good game today working with Josh on the left and was man of the match.
Well done to all the lads. It was a great game of football and looking forward to the away game when we play them again.

Scorers :

Man of the match : Connor