Away v Cheadle & Gatley

       
We had 2 mixed teams for this outing playing simultaneously. League and friendly.

1st Game: League (Alan's team) - Result - Reddish North End 0 Cheadle & Gatley 2
1st Game: Friendly (Rob's team) - Result - Reddish North End 1 Cheadle & Gatley 0

2nd Game: League (Alan's team) - Result - Reddish North End 2 Cheadle & Gatley 4
2nd Game: Friendly (Rob's team) - Result - Reddish North End 3 Cheadle & Gatley 0

Team coach (Alan) views on the game:

1st Game (League):
We played this game against Cheadle with plenty of effort and against some intimidation from their team, when we went past them, their players kept trying to trip our players, I don't like that, I like to play the game fair. I asked the ref (which was one of their parents) to have a word, but he did a great impression of Arsene Wenger and said he didn't see it, anyway we got on with the game. We had plenty of chances from Patrick and Nathan W, and great defending from Matt and Isacc.

Man of the match: Aaron - because he kept the score down and was very brave getting down and saving at the feet of the Cheadle players.

2nd game (League):
We changed the lineup for this game with Henry, Isacc, Callum, Nathan W, Declan, Lewis W, & Lewis M.
We got off to a bad start going 3 - 0 down in the first half.
The second half was much better and we had plenty of chances, Henry scored a great team goal - Lewis W kicked the ball out of his area and Henry ran up the pitch with it, passing to Nathan W who crossed it into the area, the Cheadle goalkeeper dropped the ball for Henry to score.

Our second goal was a great solo effort from Nathan W, he collected the ball in midfield, ran up into their area avoiding tackles and his shot went into the far top corner, the score was now 3-2 to Cheadle.
It looked as if only one team was going to win and it wasn't cheadle.
They made 3 subs and brought on their stronger players, we just couldn't carry it to the last minute and they scored one more, it was a soft goal really, travelling a long way across the pitch to creep in the corner of our goal. Lets hope we can carry on with these performances and improve with each game.

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Assistant coach on the day (Rob) views on the game:

1st Game (Friendly):
From the outset I made it clear to the players to keep the position they play in, avoiding 4 or 5 players chasing the same ball. Defenders were defenders, Midfield were midfield and strikers were strikers. By all means the back line can make forward runs, but get back to position once you release the ball. Full credit to the lads, they kept excellent position discipline throughout the game and a cracker it was too. End to end football with both sides having lots of chances to score.
We agreed to play Josh at left back and it certainly paid off. Every time their wingers tried to come in, he tracked them brilliantly and 9 out 10 times forced them into touch. Well done Josh.
We had young Callum at right back who also kept them at bay with some great tackles.
Henry in goal for this one and did not disappoint us, one or two great saves and brave going down for the ball.
Centre of Midfield we had a loan player from C&G, little Aneel - he played a blinder for us, I encouraged him to take them on – and he did just that, and more.
Declan at left Mid and another loan player from C&G at right Mid, Lewis M up front.
They held this throughout the game.

With me bawling the instructions to hold the ball, pass, release, track, mark up etc, the lads responded to it, all the way through the game to give us a very enjoyable football match.
Our passing was very good today, especially on the pitch we played on, it was almost full size and gave the lads plenty of freedom to create space and movement.

Every week I tell the lads, especially our wingers to put the ball in the box and get the strikers and midfield in the danger area, every time we do this we have a goal scoring chance and today was no different. We attacked and pushed them back for most of the game and little Aneel ripped through the Midfield, passed to Declan, up the left side, (Big shout -“put the ball in the box”) he does really well, beats the defender coming for him, crossed it into the box and there was our Striker Lewis with a sweet volley in the back of the net. A well deserved goal on our part, purely because the passing and discipline they shown was remarkable. I couldn’t fault any player today.
C&G did get one back from a cross on the right side but the ball was seen by the Ref to go over the touchline before the cross was made, hence it was disallowed. A bit harsh I thought, but I wasn't complaining!

Now then, Man of the match, another difficult choice. Josh and young Callum played their best game for us today, providing a solid defence in front of Henry. Our loan player Aneel in midfield literally took control in the central role, dribbling and tackling his way through the middle and passing some great balls to the runners at each side of him. Declan on the left side of midfield never give them an inch and Lewis played fantastic as our main striker and got us our goal.
Man of the match: Lewis by the slightest of margins and simply because we really needed a win today after previous results and his goal gave us a big lift, but – every player deserved it today.
Final score 1 – 0 to RNE (By the way we only had 7 players, they had 8) Well done all the players.

2nd Game (Friendly):
We had a changed team for the second match. Alan gave me Nathan H & Patrick which was great, I wanted more options up front. Again I adapted the same tactics of position discipline to the team and it worked ok for us.

Arron in goal, Josh left back, Matt right back. 2 loan players from C&G on the wings and Nathan H and Patrick up front. We were again 1 man short for this game!

I also went with the tactic of Arron rolling the ball out to a defender and playing the ball up field, rather than the kick, this worked well for us and what a game! Every time I shouted an instruction it was applied to a T.
Passing was excellent. Our defence were never really troubled and our midfield were superb.

Once again (Big shout -“put the ball in the box”) and every time we did, this put pressure on their defence and opened up chances.
 
Like the team I had in the first game, I couldn’t fault the lads in this one either, which brings us to another difficult Man of the match decision. The whole team truly deserved this and you can have a pop at my decision but, I gave it to Nathan H by the slightest of margins, for a number of reasons. Firstly the opposition coach commented straight after the game on how our Number 7 chased, ran up and down the pitch and won almost every ball he went in for, so I wasn’t the only one to notice. I played Nathan out of his usual position at right wing and put him up front with Patrick and between them could have scored 6 goals!
As usual, week in week out, he absolutely ran his socks off for the team, he had 4 chances on goal, 2 hit the post, 1 the keeper saved and 1 a defender jumped in the way of a shot heading into the right corner.
From upfront he came back into midfield and defence and battled for every ball, he just didn’t leave them alone.
Picking up balls in midfield and moving wide to work with Patrick, then back in the opposition penalty area for another crack at goal. He was like this the whole game relentlessly, and if anyone deserves a goal it’s Nathan. Add this to the fact that he had a good match in his other game for Alan I think it’s well deserved.

We got three goals in this game and although it was our 2 loan players who scored them, do not let this mar our efforts as a team. They scored through good passing and movement from our boys doing a great job all over the field. We pushed the C&G team back and didn’t let them have time on the ball. (Remember, we were 1 man short again)

Arron, Josh and Matt were excellent as our back line, in fact I can’t remember Arron, our keeper, having to make any saves in the second half, that shows great defending.
Patrick had a couple of good chances to score, worked hard and played very well as left side striker, (keep your head up Pat when you do lose the ball). Well done Patrick.

Well done all the lads. I am very proud of our performances today.