A Close Game

Our first visit to Chartridge to take on Chesham United Rangers always promised to be a tough encounter and this proved to be the case.

That having been said our performance against a team who had been in the Green Division all season was very good and even the Chesham coach admitted a draw would have been a fair result.

You could tell Chesham had been a this level for longer than we have and I would describe them as a very 'street wise' side when it comes to football in this division. They combined a physical but fair approach to the game with a flowing passing game that we were able to match for most of the game.

We started with our usual formation with Jack Rollins starting in defence to get some good experience against strong opposition alongside Charlie Davis and Igor Chrzanowski. It was a busy start to the game for the defence and Chesham soon found themselves one up thanks to a tidy finish into the bottom left hand corner of the net.

We had a tendency to try and play too narrow for a lot of the first half and it was when we got the ball out wide that we looked at our most dangerous. James Gibson and Andrew Carr looked dangerous on the wings whilst Joshua Harrison and Elliott Behan in midfield looked at their best when the play was spread out which gave them more space in the centre of the field. Elliott had his best game for a while and put in a man of the match performance as he rose to the physical challenge Chesham offered him. Kaelin Shaw started the game as the lone man up front but found himself effectively dropping him back into midfield to provide cover for our speedy midfielders as they broke forward.

We equalised when we were awarded a free kick just outside the box and Charlie Davis stood up to score his third goal in as many games - not bad for a defender!

It looked like the teams would go in all square at the break however Chesham managed to poke their noses in front again with a great strike from around 20 yards out moments before the clock hit the 30 minute half.

As usual we made some changes at half time. Aqib Zahir came on for Jack in defence and put in a solid half's performance, Joshua Cotton came on for James as we looked to utilise his ability to hold the ball up and pick out a killer pass whilst Harry Grantham came on for Kaelin and made our midfield look that little bit more solid as we put in a more than decent second half performance.

We pulled ourselves level when the Chesham keeper was unable to hold onto a shot and Joshua Harrison persisted and was able to hammer the ball home. The Chesham keeper was later to make a great save with his feet from Josh which ultimately won his side all three points.

We introduced Jacob Oliver into the midfield in place of Elliott (who had worked his socks off for the team) and Jacob gave us a sensible and assured performance in looking to get the ball up the field at every opportunity.

Chesham scored what turned out to be the winning goal when their attacker kept his cool in front of goal and wasn't to be put off by the pressing Aylesbury defenders as he nestled the ball into the corner. Oliver Foster was later to make a brilliant save to prevent Chesham making it four which helped us all in continuing to believe that we could secure ourselves a draw.

With time running out we took a bit of a gamble in trying to secure a draw as Kaelin was introduced back into the game whilst Alex Marranntino came on for skipper Andrew Carr who had not given up battling for the entire game and Nelson Nkanzei came on for Harry as we looked to see if we could catch Chesham on the break as they tired.

It wasn't to be however and our last real chance of the game came from a corner where we threw everyone bar Oliver into the area but we were unable to capitalise on a loose ball which seemed to hang around in the area for ages - a case of tired minds overruling tired bodies I think.

I always say that losing is never a problem as long as we make the opposition work for the win and we can take positives away from the game. This was certainly the case today. We gave an established side a very good game and our only two defeats since promotion have been by a single goal so we are certainly worthy of our place at the higher level and are proving this week after week. The lessons to be learnt from the game are that the higher you go the more physical the game becomes and that the entire width of the pitch is there to be used. When we spread the game out wide and get our talented wide players on the ball this worries the opposition and it also creates a lot more space for our central players to play.

Next up is our final home game of the mini conference season against Beaconsfield Holtspur Hawks followed by our final game of the season away at Prestwood the week after. All season we have been very good at bouncing back from defeats and I expect no different this coming weekend.