v Hornchurch

[Curtis]

31 minutes ago, Reading Rebel said:

Hornchurch were the better side for large parts of the 90+ minutes and must be gutted to have left the ground with nothing to show for their efforts.

I think we might see a lot of this throughout the season as Scott said in his interview ‘we are not a team that want to dominate the ball, we are not going to be a possession based team’.

From what I’ve seen in our two home matches though we are a hard working team with plenty of goal scoring threats and a never give up attitude…… which could mean we win a lot of matches this season.

[Nathan]

2 hours ago, Reading Rebel said:

Yes, Hornchurch were the better side for large parts of the 90+ minutes and must be gutted to have left the ground with nothing to show for their efforts.

But on the flip side it does show the character we have in this squad to not be at our best, stay in the game and eventually come away with 3 hard earned points.

Agreed; winning games like these (where we were far from our best) is a sign of a good team.

This was a strange topsy-turvy game. We started brightly and were dominant for the first 20 minutes, but only had a Kweku Lucan effort and Slavi Spasov hitting the crossbar to show for it. Hornchurch had showed little, but after half an hour or so started to grow into the game and definitely finished the first half stronger.

The second half continued in the same vein, with an effective Hornchurch midfield bossing the show and us huffing and puffing to no effect. Hornchurch's dominance paid off not long into the second half, whereupon we started to rely on the long ball (criminally under-utilising John Ufuah IMO) and Hornchurch started to run rings around us. They had several chances to increase their lead, and we were a fortunate to remain only 1 goal down.

But in the 68th minute our luck changed, though again we were a little fortunate. A silly foul just outside the box gave Scotty to chance to level the scores, which he duly took. This changed the game and completely knocked the wind out of Hornchurch's sails. From then on we were once again dominant. We completed the turnaround via a Dan Baylis header (which didn't look like it had crossed the line from where I was sitting, though you could tell from the fans and keeper's reaction that it clearly had) and then saw out the rest of the game quite comfortably.

It was a little worrying just how much better Hornchurch were when they were on top, and our route back into the game was, though well taken, self-inflicted by Hornchurch; until then we were getting nowhere. But 3 wins from 4, 2nd in the table and up 9 points from where we were at this stage last season all count as good progress in my book!

17 hours ago, GlenSTFC said:

Scott, any news or thoughts on how long Slavi could br out for? So frustrating to have picked up this injury when he’s on top of his game.

When he was subbed off, he walked off unaided so I hope this was just a precautionary measure?

[Curtis]

I thought Scott said in the interview he didn’t expect Slavi to be available Monday

[Reading Rebel]

2 hours ago, Curtis said:

I thought Scott said in the interview he didn’t expect Slavi to be available Monday

He did

[Reading Rebel]

7 hours ago, Curtis said:

I think we might see a lot of this throughout the season as Scott said in his interview ‘we are not a team that want to dominate the ball, we are not going to be a possession based team’.

From what I’ve seen in our two home matches though we are a hard working team with plenty of goal scoring threats and a never give up attitude…… which could mean we win a lot of matches this season.

Things could be a bit different when Matt Lench comes back.

He's a player who likes to play on the deck possession football.

With the pace we have going forward I don't see a problem with getting the ball to them asap but there are times when we have to keep possession of the ball in midfield.

As they say there's more than one way to skin a cat 😏

Edited August 25, 2024 by Reading Rebel

[Reading Rebel]

5 hours ago, Nathan said:

Agreed; winning games like these (where we were far from our best) is a sign of a good team.

This was a strange topsy-turvy game. We started brightly and were dominant for the first 20 minutes, but only had a Kweku Lucan effort and Slavi Spasov hitting the crossbar to show for it. Hornchurch had showed little, but after half an hour or so started to grow into the game and definitely finished the first half stronger.

The second half continued in the same vein, with an effective Hornchurch midfield bossing the show and us huffing and puffing to no effect. Hornchurch's dominance paid off not long into the second half, whereupon we started to rely on the long ball (criminally under-utilising John Ufuah IMO) and Hornchurch started to run rings around us. They had several chances to increase their lead, and we were a fortunate to remain only 1 goal down.

But in the 68th minute our luck changed, though again we were a little fortunate. A silly foul just outside the box gave Scotty to chance to level the scores, which he duly took. This changed the game and completely knocked the wind out of Hornchurch's sails. From then on we were once again dominant. We completed the turnaround via a Dan Baylis header (which didn't look like it had crossed the line from where I was sitting, though you could tell from the fans and keeper's reaction that it clearly had) and then saw out the rest of the game quite comfortably.

It was a little worrying just how much better Hornchurch were when they were on top, and our route back into the game was, though well taken, self-inflicted by Hornchurch; until then we were getting nowhere. But 3 wins from 4, 2nd in the table and up 9 points from where we were at this stage last season all count as good progress in my book!

When he was subbed off, he walked off unaided so I hope this was just a precautionary measure?

We shouldn't really shocked because Hornchuch are a decent side and you can see why they walked away with the Isthmian Premier title last season.

[cup of tea]

First of all thank you for the hospitality. Thought it was a good game but the thing at this level is you have to take your chances that’s cost us points in two games this season, you did we didn’t . My mom as much as it pains me to say it was Scott Davies , he was awesome not just for the goal but his general play - he mopped up at the back a number of times , intelligent player. All the best for the rest of the season and see you at the bridge.