Enfield Town v Carshalton Athletic

[seemgee]

McDonald, Spencer, Payne, Thomas, Knight, Richmond, Youngs, Isaac, Wyllie, Coker, Cunnington

Taafe, Cass, Della-Verde, Wilson-Braithwaite,  Okotcha

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1-0 Coker 1 min

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2-0 Knight 27 mins

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2-1 65 mins

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3-1 Cass 76 min

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4-1 Cass 90 mins

att healthy 538

Sitting top of the league this evening......dare we start dreaming 

[Benjrider10]

Great to be able to listen to the game from 4,000 miles away and an impressive performance too! Keep this run going …….

[djwilf]

1st game for me for some time.

Nice balance within the team, 

Started off 4 2 3 1 with Adam up front and Andre, Sam and Marcus behind him.

Defence looked steady without being watertight.   300 games for Nathan and he made 3 or 4 decent saves.  With more quality in front of goal Carshalton could have made it a much tighter game.

Couldn't have started much better with our goal in the first 90 seconds, with a strong header at the back post.   The 2nd goal was a lovely move, long cross ball from Joe to Andre, who eventually managed to cross to an unmarked header from Lewis to wrong foot the keeper.

2 nil was a good scoreline to take into half time although as stated after our 2nd, Nathan made a couple of smart saves which kept us 2 goals ahead.

 

2nd half Carshalton came out a different team and applied more pressure.  Eventually their shot off the post was finished strongly by their No10 and they probably deserved their goal.

Despite being under quite a bit of pressure, we managed to avoid conceding a 2nd due to some great last ditch tackles, some good saves from Nathan and also poor finishing from the opponents.

Joe's long throws are always a good weapon with Adam and 2 tall centre halves assisting him and when the ball fell to Jake he finished strongly.  

We kept our shape 2nd half and managed to avoid them having too many clearcut chances, although their midfielder missed badly when he should have hit the target with a snapshot which went wide.

Into added time, Jake latched on to a decent through ball and again his accurate finish nestled into the corner.

Positives:   Some results at the top went in our favour

Good to see some quality goals being scored against strong opponents.

Everyone battled, tackled and competed well

Defence and midfield look quite settled and forming some good relationships

Negatives:

We still give too many chances away to the opponents(Nathan did well to keep them down to only 1 goal)

We spend too long under pressure and I think also too deep as we spent long times not being able to hold onto the ball

Adam was too isolated for too long and as a result whenever we clear it the ball comes straight back.

All that said, let's keep this run going and see where the season takes us.   Well played Town!!

[Rebel without a clue]

Unfortunately couldn’t make it on Saturday, congratulations on a couple of tremendous results at home this week against good opponents it more than makes up for the poor performance against kingstonian who incidentally lost there next two games 5-0 5-1

[seemgee]

7 hours ago, Rebel without a clue said:

Unfortunately couldn’t make it on Saturday, congratulations on a couple of tremendous results at home this week against good opponents it more than makes up for the poor performance against kingstonian who incidentally lost there next two games 5-0 5-1

Kingstonian with one win in there last 11 games......against us. 

[Barney]

Good showing on Saturday, but definitely not a 4-1 performance, we were under pressure for a lot of the game (I lost count how many corners Carshalton had), but apart from a couple of very good chances which they probably should have done better with, we largely restricted them to a lot of possession but nothing clear cut. The back 4 seem to be defending well as a unit, and Nathan behind them inspires confidence, Issac and Thomas both look a level above in terms of ability, but as I've said before, I worry that neither of them have the legs for a full 90 at the intensity they'd like.

The difference for me in the first half was a couple of bits of quality wing play (one from Coker, and one from Wyllie) which led to our two goals - once we were 2-0 up we competed well across the pitch, and worked very hard to maintain the lead. Second half we didn't start as well, and were on the back foot for long periods, and I agree completely with DJ's assessment - we invite too much pressure, and aren't proactive enough. I think a lot of credit has to go to Carshalton being a good side, who are in form, and who made it hard for us, but we really are going to be tested against the top 5, and we have to try to keep the ball better to alleviate pressure when the opposition are on top. We aren't going to be able to rely on fantastic last ditch challenges and great saves every game to get us across the line.

Positive to see Cass come on and look sharp - his second was a lovely run and finish after a good flick from Lyle, and certainly having him available gives us the option to play slightly differently. All in all a good day at the office, and delighted to be top of the table - we need to keep finding ways to win difficult games if we want to stay there, keep players fit and maintain this momentum.