Oadby Town vs Gresley Rovers
On Saturday we played Oadby away for the first time this season. On first sight of the pitch I knew any chance of observing the beautiful game this week had disappeared out of the window.
Regardless of the bumpy pitch we were there to do a job and continue our push for the top three spot that I set the lads as a target at the beginning of the season.
The game started off well enough with Mykey Pryce creating a chance within the first 10 minutes down the left, something out of nothing really, the keeper saved well. The rest of the half continued in what I can only describe as hot potato football from both teams.
Oadby had adopted a 3-5-2 formation opposed to our 4-4-2, and with them also having the benefit of the wind behind them, they dominated the midfield area as we stuck to our formation. We believed if we could get to half-time on level terms then in the second half with the wind we could get in behind their back three, I must point out here something myself and Dave Acton spoke about during the first half, and that's all credit to Oadby they played their formation 3-5-2 as well as we'd ever seen before.
Half time came, 0-0 and plenty to play for in the second half.
In the second half I believe we edged it on points in contrast to Oadby winning the first half, but really not a lot to shout about for either team, Kamar Smithen was unlucky on a couple of occasions and Andy Smith will be disappointed he didn't finish from 12 yards, if the truth be known we worked hard but didn't create anywhere near enough.
As I said to the lads at the end, I really can't take anything positive out of that game, that is apart from a world class save from Lee Villers with 5 minutes to go.
On the subject of positive from the game I suppose I was a bit harsh saying to the lads there were no positives - after all it was a point away from home against a team that beat us twice last year and maybe last year we would have conceded that goal in the last 5 mins?
This is for sure though, a vast improvement is required all round!!!
Simon Van de-Brooke
