Southwell City Panthers U10 5-1 ECFC Black U10

Organised Friendly

We had recently beat Southwell 4-2 who play in division 1 so this would be a good test in prep for next weeks cup game away at Toton on grass.

The pitch was boggy and we started up hill playing some great football dominating and created 4 wonderful chances only for the Southwell keeper to be in superb form, changes were made and unfortunately this affected the balance of the team as we conceded 2 very soft goals.

2nd twenty we shot down hill and reshuffled once more with Liam scoring a wonderful chipped goal to make it 2-1 but then Southwell scored a well worked goal to go 3-1 up.

The Blacks once more had some great chances but again failed to score and affected the team.

Negative attitudes, excuses and frustration kicked in from some of our players which was disappointing to hear, when we should always push on until the end as some good play was being played at times.

The last 20 we went up the hill once again which was a big ask on a boggy pitch and again we created chances but opportunities were not taken & this cost us dearly.

Then we resorted to kick and rush football, our playing out from the back was not the best, players wondering, getting on top of each other which resulted in us conceding 2 very very soft goals again!!

Lots of players heads dropped which was disappointing to see.

The conditions were the same for both teams. Pass and move, not kick and rush.

We had a chat to the boys after the game. Ben & myself were quite aware that we played 40 minutes uphill on a heavy pitch which was challenging for them but loss of concentration and desire was far from their usual performances.

We dust ourselves down and we come focussed for training at 7pm on Wednesday to prepare for next Saturday to go forward firing on all fronts ready for our cup game V Toton.

Matt & Ben