Esprit 1-5 Spartans

Just to reiterate, that pitch would have given the baseball ground a run for it's money, it really was very muddy indeed.Despite the conditions, the game wasn't very scrappy and was quite an open affair.We knocked it around more, they tended to go straight for the wings - they have a pacey geezer that looked like Makelele, he was their main outlet.Anyway, I can't remember any testers before we took the lead. Nce buildup down the left, rolled inside to Matt T, who rolled it on to Bony M, who drove it home very nicely indeed from about 20 yards, straight as an arrow into the bottom corner. Very well taken goal. I'd guess that was around 15 minutes in.They equalised, The makalele geezer got down the right, stood a cross up over my head and some dude for them did something he didn't look capable of and belted an on the run volley into the absolute top corner anglt from 12 yards. ****er.We continued to play most of the good stuff without really threatening, thay were playing it into the channels and chasing us down. This was pretty effective for them because it was a fookin joke trying to get traction in some spots of the pitch and there was the potential for anything to happen. In the end, what happened was quite a few people stacked or nearly stacked it and we dealt with what they had without getting into trouble.A decent corner was nearly turned in, Sam spun to hit it against the bar, asr the resulting goalmouth scramble was half cleared, Alex's edge of the are shot flew just over.A few minutes later, we got another corner - we pushed right on top of them and forced a few corners from their errors, good running.Anyway, Matty Lane scored directly from the corner. Nice work.Their little bang it into the channel tactic almost pad dividends, Makelele boy got half through but when Bracken looked like making the ball over the top, he took a dive.Ref, being their gaffer, gave them a free kick and booked Dan as there was cover behid him. Dan did very well to turn the free kick over and we cleared the corner.fast forward a bit, their keeper hada mare kicking out, El returned it with interest, Sam clean through, goal.Given.Then ruled out.Iffy decision if you ask me, I was pissed by this since we got cheated out of a goal the other week. Never offside, ref wasn't listening. Anyway, all was forgooten a few mins later, Sam went and made sure, firing home a ball squared from the left, about 12 yarsd out.In the second half we continued what we were doing, keeping the ball, knocking it around, stretching them. Didn't get any real trouble. El went clean through aroun 55 -60, gave the keeper the eyes, put him on his batty, clipped it home - the elements did their best to stop it on the line though!Rob M came on for Matty L, Yeti came on for Alex. Both were involved in number 5, Yeti working it down the right hand side for El to cross, Rob's first tough was sublime and took him straight around the keeper, he tapped in.Rob had had another ruled out about 5 mins earlier. Personally couldn't tell if that was right or wrong.We had a few mildly hairy moments of our own making, misjudging some aerial balls - this was really due to the weather being an absolute ****. Bracks made a decent one on one after one of these, other then that it was fairly plain sailing. Without battering the team we scored 5, had 2 ruled out and carved out several other great chances.I'd say we just kept comfotable, controlled it and let the ball do the work. The ball retention was excellent, we fully used the width. I thought our Centre mids stood out, they were fantastic and totally dominated the game. Bony had an excellent match, Matt was his usual quality self.Alex worked really well up and down the right, El was involved a lot and really nailed the support striker position.Everybody else was very good, I thought the team performance was very solid, and felt like maybe 3rd gear?I could have gone on for ages, looking at everybody else, we all were enjoying it, not tired, they just wanted off.that's how it seemed to me.Oh yeah, 'skipper' had a sitter header in the last couple of minutes and lofted it into row Z. think I should be allowed to go up for more and on that evidence Ollie's chances as a 'big man up front' should be limited at best.