Home to Bashley

Match Report > Click Here

It’s probably wrong to say that this result has been coming, but it is fair to say that we have been on an upward turn performance-wise recently.

That said, the goalscoring aspect hasn’t been there and some of the defensive work has been hesitant, but yesterday against Bashley we were good in all departments and it was very pleasing. Make no mistake about it, Bashley came here expecting to capitalise on us to an extent and exploit the fact that we haven’t started the season as well as we expected to. We certainly stamped their fire out and showed what a good team we are when we pass and move the ball.

We had an early “goal” disallowed for offside. Ramon Calliste wasn’t offside and if anyone was it would have been Neil Midgley and it was a hairline decision. This time it didn’t really matter because we got the decision with the penalty soon afterwards for a blatant handball. Ramon made no mistake from the spot. He’s a class player and now has half a dozen goals despite missing three games through injury. I think he will score plenty of goals for us this season.

The second goal was really well worked. Stephen Smith got the ball out nice and early to Scott Neilson on the right. Stephen was doing that well yesterday whereas in previous games he’s been going sideways instead of forwards. His performance typified the improved confidence in the side. Everybody wanted the ball and looked comfortable. We have some very good footballers in the team. When we play at that level and show that sort of hunger it is difficult for even the more physical sides to live with us.

Man of the Match, Ben Nunn, recieves his award from match sponsors, Crown Plazza

I would have probably liked to have gone in 3-0 up at the break as it would have put the game to bed. We didn’t have to wait long for the third though, courtesy of Ashley soon after the restart. Ashley is getting back to his best. He runs well at defenders and we’ve been waiting for him to fire this season and yesterday he showed signs that he is getting back on top of his game. He also hit the bar later in the game with a fantastic effort.

Ramon’s second goal to put us four up was a lovely finish, but that’s him all over, he has real ability, and it is a skill in itself to beat the keeper one-on-one and finish with such aplomb. He shows us this in training and he has a touch of class about him.

Mark E’Beyer and Danny Spendlove caught the eye when they came on and so they should. I’ve been asking for the substitutes to make an impact when they are introduced because it’s no good them coming on and being negative, they have to prove that they are worthy of being in the team. For the first time in a few weeks I was pleased to see that they contributed really well.

In the end we could have had seven or eight goals, but lets not forget that Bashley never gave up. I was impressed by their willingness to keep working hard despite the goals flying in at the other end, it’s quite a difficult thing to do because as a player you feel that its hardly worth it sometimes. Despite everything you try you keep conceding goals and it’s soul destroying, but Bashley kept trying.

There were no injuries to report. Matty Haniver missed out because he sustained a slight knee injury in training, but I am not expecting him to be sidelined long. He will be training again this week so we should have a full compliment of players for the FA Cuptie against Worthing next week and I will be surprised and disappointed if we don’t replicate yesterday’s standard of performance. They are a level below us in the pyramid, but it’s not about them, it’s about us and how we perform on the day. I don’t care if they come here and pack their defence, we have the players to break that down. It’s all about us showing the desire and wanting to do something in the competition. We go into that game on the back of two clean sheets and it is no surprise that this coincides with the arrival of Zac Barrett and Mark Smith. Those two have had a tremendous influence on the back five and the silly goals we were conceding which lead to a drop in confidence levels, have dried up.

In closing, it was nice to record three points yesterday on the back of a very good all round display. It was a day of plusses really with the shirt sponsorship being signed as well as the match itself being sponsored.