Whilst three wins in eight days have brought us a maximum return in terms of points from our opening three home matches, there are still many areas that need improvement and for long spells on Saturday our performance was far from convincing. In mitigation, we did field an inexperienced midfield, without the services of Luke Berry, Luke Allen & Jack Eades, JP is playing out of position as a striker and with JT on first team duty, Alex Bevan and Liam Hughes are also not occupying their most favoured roles. The players who are benefiting from an early chance in the team have to do more to nail down a regular starting position though. Our most consistent performer in these opening fixtures has been Ryan Ingrey, who only joined us in the summer from Histon. Application and workrate are two qualities that have helped Ryan to look like a centre forward with great potential and our major threat going forward in the last two games.

The first half became a turgid affair after early chances were missed, most notably by JP and Liam Hughes, our eventual goalscorers. The visitors, pointless after their first two outings, played a sweeper in a 3-4-3 formation that should have given us acres in midfield to move the ball but our lack of sharp and intelligent movement rendered this space irrelevant. Neither full-back got forward quickly enough and despite a goalkeeper reluctant or unable to kick, we allowed our increasingly confident opponents the chance to put together passes in their own half. We needed to get on the front foot, show more collective desire in pressing the ball and be more dynamic in change of possessions. Increasingly as the half progressed, we would check out and play backwards after winning the ball back and stayed too rigidly in our lines of 4-4-2. The speed of thought and anticipating what is going to happen is half the battle. The willingness and ability to work flat out when required is the other. At times in the first half we had neither and started to rely on "Roy of the Rovers" forays by our two centre backs resulting in wayward long range shots.

In truth, we were not much better in the second half so with limited attacking options on the bench, it was a relief to open the scoring from our first real cross of quality in open play by James Brighton. His delivery was turned in from close range by Liam Hughes. Moments later there was a strike of real quality, out of character with the match. Chris Tonks stood up an excellent first time cross to the far post which was met with a thunderous athletic volley by JP that went in via the underside of the bar.

The game was always going to be over once we scored as the visitors carried minimum threat all afternoon but despite the goals, we need to analyse why at times our play looks so laboured. We have played with good width in all three games to make the pitch as big as possible but the players need a greater understanding of how and when to work so they can be dynamic and effective at the right times. Our players also need to improve their individual technical details so that when they are played out of their comfort zone, their shortcomings are not so obviously exposed. It's all part of the learning curve but it is no use the players believing they are going to handle playing in the Blue Square Premier without first addressing weaknesses in their games highlighted in the Ridgeons League. Simply winning is not enough to hide these issues.

We now have a rare blank week in the fixture list, which will help us to work more on the training pitch, before travelling to Brantham for our first game on the road next Saturday.

Team: Davies, Bevan, Coakley, Hughes, Hudson, Tonks (Cooper 80), Bennett (Parr 80), Hannant, Ingrey, Patrick, Brighton


[CRC Fixtures & Results]

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