Padiham Saints J.F.C

Got this down and hopefully will be able to post it once the site is back up and running.
Once again not one of your better games, great football in spasms but sadly no consistency. A couple of players held things together both in defence and going forwards but the shooting boots certainly weren’t on today.
You do need a degree of luck in football and hitting the bar twice and the post once in the first half showed it wasn’t going your way today.
I’d said last week you had the ability to win ugly and that’s just what you did today after going a goal down almost straight away. You can’t afford to underestimate any team in this league and sometimes you have to be satisfied grinding out a result.

Although we only put four away the score line doesn’t show how dominant you really were, our keeper really wasn’t troubled at all again particularly in the second half. Matty had a good solid game at the back breaking down several attacks and laying off some excellent balls.
Curtis ran his heart out down the left and was rewarded by a superb strike that gave their keeper little chance flying into the top left corner.
What a striker’s goal from Reece, cutting in from the right and blasting one across the keeper.
Their keeper really kept the score line respectable with some fine saves and stops, he thoroughly deserved man of the match.

As always I’ll try and be critical in a constructive way, you attack en-mass without any problem but if the attack breaks down for any reason you have to get back quicker. Several times today we had them on the attack from a breakdown of one of ours and we’d four or five players strolling back in their half. Got to get back quicker lads or you’ll start to pay for it, you midfielders need to be really fit because you attack but you also defend, You can’t leave it all to Mark and Matty at the back. Again on a couple of occasions they had three against our two but our two managed to break it down.

It was a smaller pitch and I’m convinced as a spectator that the smaller pitches just don’t suit your style of play, on the bigger pitches you have room to run into space and be inventive with your play, on these smaller pitches everything is crammed up, space at a premium resulting in sometimes scrappy football.
That said it was job done and a valuable three points in the bag. Flying high at the top of the league eleven points clear is a position all the other teams must envy but let’s not get too complacent about it. More wins are required to secure the title and you have the ability to do it.

Final say on their linesman, really was trying not to put this in but it’s really starting to bug me now. He flags Curtis for offside who was at least two yards onside, why did he flag? Because we had two players in an offside position but guess what Mr linesman, they weren’t in play so how have you flagged our player offside when he was two yards onside. Know the laws of the game or don’t run the line.

Well done lads, lets keep it going.