Scorers: (Kenga 2, Hughes 2, Kelly)
Back to the Racecourse on a breezy Saturday afternoon. There was a good atmosphere in the dressing room despite the stories of woe from the week. I feel sorry for Jay Hughes, he could be telling stories of plague and pestilence and I would still laugh at him. Too much of a ‘cheeky chappie’ for his own good. I took my like my usual seat next to Dan Jones, it’s a good seat. His chat is quite intelligent, his facial hair non-threatening and he always tells me how ‘up for it’ he is. As far as I am aware, he is talking about football.
The pre-match talk was initially about how racist the names of the ‘gladiators’ were in the hit 90s show (they really were when you think about it), before switching to the game in hand. We had secured a big three points at South Bank the week before and it was time to consolidate. Patience on the ball, sharper movement and more aggressive pressing were the order of the day.
We started well and put Lyonians under a decent amount of pressure. They were quite handy on the ball but we might well have played our best half hour of the season. Jay Hughes opened the scoring, a half cleared corner was hooked back into the box and not dealt with. Jay got over the bouncing ball well and fired it into the corner.
We went up a gear and played some really fantastic stuff to carve them up. Park added the second when we played a couple of lovely give and go’s around the edge of the box, Jay squared and Ellion tapped home. Crisp.
Lyonians tried to stifle us, deploying their midfield enforcer to ‘mix it up’. Unfortunately for the oppo, he was more talk than trousers. Halfway between an overweight Don Revie and a curly haired Paul Burrell, he managed to rile Matt Kelly enough to stick in the third. Nice quick passing around the edge of the box allowed Kelly to sculpt one inside at the far post.
The fourth came soon after, the lively Kenga breaking loose down the left before rifling across goal from just inside the area. The game was over as a contest, despite claims from the back line that it was ‘still 0-0’ (Psychology – A*)
The second half was a more quiet affair. We tried to keep the ball, with varying degrees of success. We went five to the good when Patterson drove out of defence, exchanged passes with Kelly and then played an absolutely awful ball in behind the defence. However, their centre half lost his battle with gravity, resembling a diagram of the evolution of man in reverse. The lively Hughes latched onto it before dinking beautifully over the on rushing keeper. We missed a few chances from this point on, lost our clean sheet to a cross/shot late on and Simpson kicked a post. Standard AP affair.
Another 3 points to keep up the winning streak. A fantastic first half performance from our front 4 was just too much for the oppo. Having ‘won ugly’ last week, it was good to see us looking so fluid . A cup quarter final up next week and I for one know AP and Dan Jones will be ‘up for it’.
MOM : Jay Hughes. In his own words, when a straw poll was taken in the club post game ‘2 goals, 2 assists, who the **** else are you going to pick’. What a cheeky chappie.
Team : Simpson, Carlin, Patterson, Egan (Nicholau), Thrale (K. O’Leary), Jones, Gunyon (D. O’Leary), Kenga, Morris, Kelly, Hughes
