The 2s aren’t having the best first half of the season. The squad is quality with some solid skillful players and most games see South on the right side of the possession and pressure but not the right side of the scoreline.
This week was a real crunch game, sitting 2nd from bottom we had a crucial match against bottom. A win would mean jumping potentially up to 7th in the table.
We started strong with a high press and pressure on City, switching from our new formation back to a classic 4-3-3 due to availability of defenders. Some early D penetrations proved unfruitful but set the pace for the game. City had some very handy players, who had the skills to weave through numerous failed tackles. Eric, Jim and Matteo were connecting well in the midfield, creating plenty of attacking opportunities for the forward line and allowing some great counter attacking play. The forwards were also looking to get on the score sheet with Jonty, Alec and Ollie all striking at goal with varying levels of success.
City were looking dangerous on the break with their young players, but the back line were calm and collected dealing with the threats. Ethan, Maz and Tom were throwing in some good tackles, whilst Harrison and Pete were pinging the balls down the line for the forwards to pick up. The transfer play was clean round the back and through the midline where John and Alex were providing the perfect pivot when they were on the pitch respectively.
At the break Cal emphasized being more patient and letting City make the mistakes, we swapped to 60% on the press and set Pearson on their key player in the middle, the turncoat. South built the possession and soaked up City’s early pressure, including a couple of solid saves from George at short corners. We knew the result was coming, we just needed to build towards it.
After numerous unsuccessful attacks into the D John finally got sick of screening and decided to take matters into his own hands. He nicked the ball off a City player and dribbled round their whole defense and sent a worldy into the top bins (VAR couldn’t confirm if there was a deflection or not). With maybe 4 minutes left on the clock, we set for the restart and immediately countered again winning a short corner, this time a slick routine saw Alex pinging the ball across the goal for Pearson to deflect in on the back post. South 2 City 0.
3 minutes left to hold on, we’ve seen this before, but South set well and absorbed the inevitable City attacks. There was even enough time for Tom to mistime a flat stick tackle and send one of the young City players flying, even Puds was so shocked he couldn’t even find his yellow card. South managed to hold on and win 2-0 a well deserved victory and sending us back up to 8th.