Team,

I think we all felt our 3-4 loss today. 

It was gutsy effort on the heaviest pitch we've played on all season but in the end, we just did not do quite enough to win.  Our game is displayed to its' best on firm, fast grounds - today's pitch was like treacle that slowed our game down and made it a game of attrition - we had a few walking wounded by games' end today.  Despite going 3-2 up, we conceded 2 late goals - and that as they say was that!  A few of us "experts" on the sidelines felt that if our goal-end goals in the second half were actually vertical, we could have snuck a couple more in today - but, so be it!

We had to shuffle the defensive line today due to Jack's injury which resulted in some players out of their normal positions of late.  A couple of other players were not feeling 100%.  But all players responded well and we had some great chances to win - and so did they, but some great saves from Francesco kept them at bay.  One goal from Martin and two from James H kept us in the hunt.  The defensive line was under pressure for much of the match and responded well - none better than Andy who justly earned the man-of-the-match award today with some great positional play, quality heading and coolness under pressure.

It was a tough match and I hold no grievances for the 2 bookings we incurred - it was that sort of match with very committed players on both side.  Both bookings were from hard tackles from players giving 100% - no change in your style or commitment guys!

Time to re-group and move on!  The games we have lost this year have all been tight - the 2 areas that are preventing us going from a good side to a great side are the way we contest high balls in the mid-field - and our goal-front accuracy.  I was reading a (business - not football sadly…) management book the other week.  One of the chapters was all about the psychology of closing deals.  It discussed examples where tests have proven that if you separate 2 groups of basketball players for goal-shooting practice and give one group "real" balls to shoot and the other group just "imagine" shooting (but go through the full set-up, lay-up routine etc), that the group "imagining" their shooting, are then far more successful when both groups are then given balls for a shoot-out - because they have thought about what they are doing and "imagined" the ball leaving their hands and the trajectory path to the goal - whereas the group with the ball were just shooting rapidly and not really thinking through their style etc.  Same basic principle in football too - I feel we are trying too hard to score sometimes, with the result we are over-kicking and over-stressing it - many of our attempts are very close - but a miss is a miss.  We just need to slow it down a bit, don't over-kick it and make it more instinctive - and the goals will come.

Thanks for a gutsy effort today guys.

Darryl