Score: 3-1 Busari (2), O. Tolcher
Back to winning ways for the 4’s after last week’s blip, we made our season debut at New River and put on a great display against City of London 3’s. We kicked off against 10 men as some of the oppo were late to arrive, and we tore straight into them.
A revised back four of Dan G, Pat, Stewart and Tom Thrale making an impressive debut, had little to do in the first half, as the midfield of Olly Tolcher, Jason, Liam and Ben were dominating possession and getting the ball up top to Reynolds and Busari as quickly as possible.
The first goal duly arrived as Busari chased down a defender and nicked the ball off him, accelerating away and then curling the ball over the oncoming keeper. By this point the oppo were up to full strength, but we went further ahead following a classic counter-attack from a City of London corner. Stewart won the header which fell to Ben on the edge of our area, he knocked the ball into Reynolds on the halfway line who turned his man and put Chris in, a cool finish for 2-0.
We continued to move the ball around and create chances, Steve having virtually nothing to do in the first 45, and we were rewarded when Olly latched on to a flick and rolled the ball past the keeper just before half time.
Second half kicked off after a chat about maintaining our discipline and the standard of play we’d produced, but this must have paled in comparison to the City of London half time chat, as they were unrecognisable at the start second half and we were on the back foot from the off, Stewart and Pat under pressure at the back and a tired looking AP midfield second to a lot of balls. City scored after about 55 minutes with their first shot of the game, bizarrely this seemed to settle us a little.
We had a few more chances, with Seb in particular going close with a curling free kick. Despite the opposition throwing the kitchen sink at us in the last 20 minutes, we closed the game out and they didn’t really have a proper sniff of goal.
All in all a decent result and the cup run continues, it’s four wins out of five competitive fixtures for the 4’s so far, let’s keep this run going.
