A game of at least seven halves, all identical. Neither side was ever going to score short of Jesus intervening personally and administering a genius pill. He chose to anoint Curtis Weston.
It was a good header out from the six-yard box. All Eastleigh had done wrong was fall back too deep in defence. They had no one in a position to pick up a second ball. We had Curtis Weston, or No-goals Weston, as he's known. Like an angel he remained calm and still and struck right through the ball, cleanly, oh so cleanly it unzipped the net. One moment of magic in ninety-odd of dross. The epitome of footballing beauty.
Our back three all played well, never looked like conceding, but they were aided and abetted by an attack shorn of Ben House and any concept of how to score a goal.
Our wing backs? Well Whittle was trying to do the complete job and did occasionally even find Kabby with the ball, but Williams provided great cover for our back three and nothing at all for the immobile Quigley. Surely if we play Quigley we also must play Miller?
In the middle of the park, Weston kept our shape, but was largely anonymous until he ascended into heaven, Kellerman was way, way below his best giving the ball away, getting caught on the ball, losing out in every supporter's imagination to Whelan, but Mandeville wasn't bad, he certainly tried and looked to link midfield and forwards on occasion, though I never saw him provide anything Quigley might lay off for Tshimanga.
Up front Quigley played as if he'd been watching Andy Murray's mum dancing, wooden, uncreative, unaware of space around him and moping because he wasn't receiving the ball as he hoped. His uselessness wasn't all his own fault, but he gave Eastleigh's big defenders not a moment of anxiety. Tshimanga bizarrely did receive some balls that Quigley might have done something with. He looked potentially dangerous, but everyone knew that anyway. He tried, but the support he received was minimal. There was no evidence of any understanding between him and his partner up front. We need to introduce them now.
You'd think given he kept a clean sheet that I'd be praising our keeper. He caught some crosses. But had I allowed a ball to loop across my six-yard box and bounce up invitingly a yard in front of my nose and NOT intervened in the bloody Chesterfield Saturday League, I'd still be getting a bollocking from our centre back 45 years plus later! This guy is going to cost us big-time. He freezes. It isn't ability he lacks, it is clarity of thought. At big moments now, given a bit too much time, he panics and goes absent. A team with any real ambition to score against us would have done it in that moment at Eastleigh.
The upside was the team tried hard and showed a lot of togetherness. The downside was that after five minutes you could see we'd need a miracle to score. We got one. It won't happen often.
It was a good header out from the six-yard box. All Eastleigh had done wrong was fall back too deep in defence. They had no one in a position to pick up a second ball. We had Curtis Weston, or No-goals Weston, as he's known. Like an angel he remained calm and still and struck right through the ball, cleanly, oh so cleanly it unzipped the net. One moment of magic in ninety-odd of dross. The epitome of footballing beauty.
Our back three all played well, never looked like conceding, but they were aided and abetted by an attack shorn of Ben House and any concept of how to score a goal.
Our wing backs? Well Whittle was trying to do the complete job and did occasionally even find Kabby with the ball, but Williams provided great cover for our back three and nothing at all for the immobile Quigley. Surely if we play Quigley we also must play Miller?
In the middle of the park, Weston kept our shape, but was largely anonymous until he ascended into heaven, Kellerman was way, way below his best giving the ball away, getting caught on the ball, losing out in every supporter's imagination to Whelan, but Mandeville wasn't bad, he certainly tried and looked to link midfield and forwards on occasion, though I never saw him provide anything Quigley might lay off for Tshimanga.
Up front Quigley played as if he'd been watching Andy Murray's mum dancing, wooden, uncreative, unaware of space around him and moping because he wasn't receiving the ball as he hoped. His uselessness wasn't all his own fault, but he gave Eastleigh's big defenders not a moment of anxiety. Tshimanga bizarrely did receive some balls that Quigley might have done something with. He looked potentially dangerous, but everyone knew that anyway. He tried, but the support he received was minimal. There was no evidence of any understanding between him and his partner up front. We need to introduce them now.
You'd think given he kept a clean sheet that I'd be praising our keeper. He caught some crosses. But had I allowed a ball to loop across my six-yard box and bounce up invitingly a yard in front of my nose and NOT intervened in the bloody Chesterfield Saturday League, I'd still be getting a bollocking from our centre back 45 years plus later! This guy is going to cost us big-time. He freezes. It isn't ability he lacks, it is clarity of thought. At big moments now, given a bit too much time, he panics and goes absent. A team with any real ambition to score against us would have done it in that moment at Eastleigh.
The upside was the team tried hard and showed a lot of togetherness. The downside was that after five minutes you could see we'd need a miracle to score. We got one. It won't happen often.