Some of the boys seemed to still be in their pyjamas and were walking around dazed for parts of the match which wasn't great to see - we had worked really well on the Friday evening on multiple aspects of the game; fitness, bursts of speed, defending, goalkeeping and playing in small tactical scenarios - it all seemed to be forgotten though which was hard to watch.
It may be that training on a Friday evening, mixed with early starts on a Saturday is too much. Unfortunately I can't do much about either at the moment - with the weather turning we need to train on astro - and have made a commitment to share the pitch with the Rockets until Feb/March next year. Saturday morning matches are difficult too. Ideally we would have a kick off around 10-10:30, but when we play away we are typically asked to play earlier. We are next due to play against Princes Villa at home on Saturday 21st and I will confirm details as soon as I can.
Onto the match - this was supposed to be 7v7 but very quickly into the match Upton were asking us to drop to 6v6 - I agreed a compromise to do Q1 & 3 as 7v7 and Q2 & 4 as 6v6. This was disappointing to me as we had agreed earlier in the week to do the whole match 7v7 and I had obviously brought a team of 10 to cover that. Having 10 players for 6v6 becomes more difficult to manage, trust me!
Q1 was interesting - although we were sluggish to begin, we seemed to be reasonably competitive at times - but the quarter summed up the period with one of Upton's boys running through three of our players and slotting it in for a goal (it was one of those slow motion moments where it just seemed to bobble over the line). End of Q1: Upton 1 - Waverton 0.
Q2, moving to 6v6 made Upton much more competitive, the pressure really turned on us and they had a really impressive strike from a very narrow angle that flew into the net and made our heads drop a bit. The next few minutes saw real opportunities at both ends, Sam Curtis made some amazing saves and Sion, playing in attack had some great efforts on goal. We took another goal against us, but also then had one of our own, through Jack Binns placing tremendous pressure on their defence and goalkeeper, the shot in this instance was a long one, that just couldn't be handled and they bundled it into their own net. I thought we were still in it at this point, but a late goal by Upton took us into the end of the half: Upton 4 - Waverton 1.
Q3 was 7v7 again and we did seem much more in control - that extra boy makes all the difference, and Upton on the whole struggled to contain us. An unlucky bobble (again) took the ball past us early on to give them a fifth, but Jack Binns played some great football today, being relentless and continuing to press the ball - this type of play is what we need to see from all of our attacking players - Oliver Wrigley, when playing in his right wing back role continued to be really effective and played some fantastic balls forward. Jack scored a great goal during this period, but then we collectively started to become careless by starting to back-pass and inviting Upton to take the ball which they gladly did, resulting in another goal and an end of Q3 score-line of: Upton 6 - Waverton 2.
Q4 started as Q3 ended - we were passing the ball directly across the pitch most of the time, and more often than not, just metres in front of our own goal. Upton started to really increase the pressure and scored two more in quick succession, the latter of the two shouldn't of been given as they kicked the ball out of Oscar's hands and into the net; I made an emergency substitution at this point as Oscar was visibly shaken by the actions of Upton and Max stepped up to make his debut as keeper. On a very isolated occasion, Jack burst through from midfield, skipping past a few Upton players and slotted what was to be our third and final goal of the day - again a really positive display from Jack. From then on though Upton reverted to playing high up in our area, with us continuing to play dangerously with the ball. Max made some fantastic saves, and his distribution was very strong too; Upton though, due to their pressure and us being risky conceded three further goals in the closing minutes to take the end result to: Upton 11 - Waverton 3.
Following on from his great performance last week, Sion was really strong and a great captain for us in the match.
Man of the match overall was Sam Curtis; he played incredibly well in goal - his focus was fantastic and he was unlucky with some of the goals scored against him. When he came out to play LWB towards the end, he also made some positive contributions - well done Sam. This of course means that, subject to availability, Sam will be Captain next week.
I've started planning already what we will be working on at training on Friday, so see you there. Hope you have a good rest of weekend.
Thanks,
Carl
AFC Waverton U8 Arrows
07896 515717
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