Little Baddow went into the game with Writtle missing a few players but were still able to field a strong team thanks to the strength in depth that we have. Darren Sawyer replacing Dave Smith in goal and Joshua Goodchild coming into the team at centre back. This was a good chance for Joshua to show us his ability after recently signing for us.
The game started well for Little Baddow. Luke Hornsley going close early on, chances that he would normally put away. Little Baddow were on top for the first 20/25 minutes the centre midfield linking well bringing the wingers into play. It would be fair to say we could have been 4 nil up within the first 20 minutes and on another day the chances created would have been taken. The breakthrough come when Richard Hands delivered an inviting cross which Burt got on the end of, the keeper could only parry and Luke followed up heading into the back of the net. The gloss was taken off the opening spell for Little Baddow with some poor referring decisions combined with a lack of discipline from some of our players. I was glad when half time come. If we continued in the manner we finished the half then we could have ended up losing the game. Our discipline could have cost us 3 points.
Writtle come out for the second half strongly putting Baddow under pressure straight from the off. However for all of the hard work Writtle were putting in I can only remember them bringing one save out of Darren Sawyer. There were spells in the second half where Baddow showed there class with composure on the ball, the simple pass being made and good movement off of the ball. With around 20 mins of the game left Luke pulled away from his marker in the penalty area, gambled that his marker was going to miss the header controlled the ball and fired his shot pass the keeper. Late substitutions were made with Charlie coming on for Jonny who continues to work tirelessly in midfield and Nick replacing Rich on the right wing. Both gave solid contributions with Charlie going close to scoring on a couple of occasions.
The positives taken from this game was a good overall team performance for the majority of the game. This was also our first clean sheet of the season, Joshua putting in a solid performance in his first competitive game for Baddow. Team selection is going to be difficult for the next game against Rivermead with some players returning after being unavailable for the match against Writtle. Little Baddow are now back top of the league. We need to keep putting in strong performances and picking up 3 points so we can put a bit of distance between us and the rest of the chasing pack.
By Dean Miller
No comments:
Post a Comment