Gresley FC vs Oadby Town
Gresley Reserves 5 - 2 Oadby Town
1. Paul Hollis 2. Craig Tucker 3. Joe Swift 4. Lee Stretton 5. Tom Land 6. Paul Friel 7. Andy Dunn 8. Joe Urquhart 9. Chris Burnham 10. Matt Weightman 11. Dave Williams
Subs: Brad Clarke, Pete Collins, Sam Rose, Matt Draycott, Tom Read
Scorers: Land 2, Dunn, Weightman, Williams
After seven weeks out of action the Reserves finally took to the field at home to Oadby Town Reserves looking to avenge a 2-0 defeat in the away fixture. We originally decided to go for a 4-4-2 formation having not played for so long to keep things simple but on reflection we opted for a 4-3-1-2 with Dave Williams having a free role behind the front two to try and take the game to them from the start.
Possibly due to lack of action we were quite slow coming out of the blocks and adjusting to the system and Oadby started brightly causing a few problems. Our visitors took the lead when we failed to deal with a corner and were slow to react to the ball bouncing around in the area and Oadby duly went in front.
Credit to the lads they now began to get a foothold on the game which was very congested with both sides packing the midfield and we started creating a few chances. A few occasions we had golden opportunities only to waste them with miss timed runs to be caught offside. The equaliser wasn't long in coming though as Tom Land rose well to head home from a corner, a feat he then repeated from another corner to put us in front.
A critical moment in the game just before half time saw us extend the lead and reduce Oadby to ten men. A goal bound shot was superbly saved on the line but unfortunately for Oadby is was by an outfield player, who left the ref with no option but produce the red card and award the penalty which was dispatched by Andy Dunn and we went into half time with a 3 - 1 lead playing against ten men.
We were looking to retain possession a bit better second half and had a good spell where we were creating good chances with gaps in their defence beginning to appear. Matt Weightman and Dave Williams were now more involved and both finished well to put us 5 - 1 up and kill the game off. We could have added further goals but failed to finish off some good passing moves. After this it was obvious the lack of matches was taking a toll and we ran out of steam a little, and it was disappointing we let Oadby pull one back from a free kick that we failed to defend. We saw out the final twenty minutes pretty much going through the motions and it was job done and we were back up and running.
