Under 11's. Division 5. Home v Lisbon St Anthony's

Result - Reddish North End 3 Lisbon St Anthony's 7

From the kick off Lisbon came straight at us, within 4 minutes they sliced our defence open and scored! 1 – 0.

More good attacking and passing football from Lisbon and dire tackling from us, basic tackles and passes we just couldn’t find, we seemed to be overwrought by Lisbon, they scored again 2 minutes later! 2 – 0.

Our lads were bemused, we know we can take 15 minutes to get going but this time we couldn’t hold the opposition off until such time we found our feet. Lisbon were finding their wingers and putting balls across the box, another Lisbon onslaught and we are 3 – 0 down.

At this point we are missing Brandon in the heart of our defence who was out today.
We are 15 minutes in and trailing by 3 goals. The lads were tying to compete but Lisbon are on the rampage and full of confidence.
Miss-kicks and no one going in for a 50/50 ball cost us again, 4 – 0 to Lisbon.
Alan summed up the first half, “why does no one want to tackle Elvis” (Lisbon’s danger man).

We did settle down a bit in the later stages of the first half and pressed forward, finally a break from the middle with Declan and found Connor lurking in their penalty area, he had a shot and it went in, 4 – 1.

From the restart it was sloppy in the centre of midfield, another break from Lisbon, another goal, 5 – 1!
To be fair it could have a lot worse this half but Aaron made some great saves to stop a whitewash in the first half.

Second half: Ian and Alan switched our wingers, Nathan left, Connor right. This was master class and worked extremely well, our 2 wide players controlled the flanks with neat turns on Lisbon's defenders, creating runs inward from wide on their natural side and getting in on goal.
The lads looked more up for it and the second half was mostly ours, Lisbon hit us the break a few times but this was always going to happen with us pushing up the pitch looking to score goals. Finally holding our own we are looking to create chances, just like the first game against Lisbon, they looked a little concerned with us.
Camped in the Lisbon half for long spells did gain us some chances, Patrick had a couple but hit wide (look up Pat before unleashing that powerful left foot). The ball was out on the right, Louis put a cross in, one bounce and Nathan couldn’t have hit it any sweeter, from 15 yards on the half volley it thundered in, great goal and comments from our side of goal of the season. 5 – 2.

It’s still all us at this point and pushing on, we are caught on the break and Lisbon scored another 2 goals, 6 – 2.
Still, we had chances to make the score-line more respectable, Nathan had another 2, both needed saves by the keeper and Patrick had a another couple blocked in the packed Lisbon box. We did get our consolation though, Connor hit a lob from the edge of the box, the keeper was going backwards, got his hands on it but knocked it in his own net above his head, another good goal. The score finished 7 – 3 to Lisbon. The referee was excellent apart from one off side decision against us in the first half, Pat scored a fair goal but the ref did not see Lisbon’s No2 keeping everyone on side.

To be fair Lisbon played well and punished us early in the game leaving it just too late for a comeback. First half we were annihilated, second half we came back into the fold and showed sparks of what we can do when we talk to each other, look up for the pass and use available space.
One concern is our strikers seem to be 2 or 3 yards off the pace of our wingers, hence the majority of our goals have come from wide players this season. We could bury more goals with our strikers on line with the play. Our wingers stole the show again and Aaron deserves a medal for the amount of saves he made today.

Scorers : Connor (2) Nathan (1)

Man of the match : Aaron