Mancis Utd 0 Asterix Reds 2 (SSL)

The blog is back – it’s taken a while but it’s back!

Mancis Utd 0 Asterix Reds 2
Scorers – Paul Williams, Adam Scott

A superb performance from the mighty reds saw off a revitalized Mancis on a cool, wet Sunday afternoon. The only thing that could’ve prevented a comprehensive Asterix victory was the brief lightning storm that saw play paused for 10 minutes or so. Before and after that interlude, Asterix dominated from start to finish with a goal in the 1st half from Paul “Bambi” Williams and one from Adam Scott.

Paul showed lovely footwork in the box bamboozling their defence and keeper for his goal after a quick break down the right by Bumni. With the Mancis defenders flummoxed Paul coolly slotted home from about 10 yards.

In the second half Adam capped a man of the match performance with a coolly finished goal after dispossessing the MU defence.

At that stage the Asterix midfield were cutting through a very good Mancis team like a McDonalds delivery boy through the rainy season traffic….

Make no mistake, this was a cracking team performance. Primarily built on solidity of the back four where they all had a superb game and the terrier like performances of the midfield – best performance in an Asterix shirt by Adam. The Reds midfield really bossed the game and the lads who played up front ran the Mancis defence ragged.

But Mancis are a good side and they still fashioned a couple of good chances, one in particular where their striker spun Bala (while fouling him) to shoot. This produced a superb point blank save by Jonesy using whatever the toe version of a fingertip save is, I suppose a toetip save.

Jonesy also kept out a 25 yd heading for the top corner in the second half and well deserved his clean sheet with only one moment of Benny Hill defending when he tried to tackle Bala and looked for all the world like a giraffe on ice….Keith has a fight for his place back

The whole match day squad did well with good players ready to come on for the tiring players, one of the strongest benches I’ve seen in my time at Asterix.
It was great to see Mages and Sarge back and good to see Ben put in a good shift up front on his debut.

Two good wins in a row and it’s a pity we have a break but we’ve shown we can be a very good side and we can take great confidence from that.

Man of the Match – Adam Scott, the boys at the back ran him close.
Muppet of the Match – Great performance, nobody did anything daft and Jonesy remember the beer so nobody this week.

Asterix Reds 1 LSCM 3 (League)

Well at least it did not rain but we still managed to get a primate to ref the game. This time a smaller version. Perhaps a lemur? He sent me off the bastard. I hardly touched the guy! Bala went as well. And so did one of their guys. It was quite ironic that a game that started off by the two teams turning up in red and then arguiong over who was going to change tops were seeing red all game.
They scored early in the first half as Jonesy got turned on a sixpence by the boy up front to slot home past Keith. Then it was all us, except for one thing. We could'nt score. Andy hit the bar with a header but other than that, we did'nt come close. Second half saw the British and Indian United Nations reps get their marching orders after some failed diplomacy and I'm afraid there is no escaping the POW awards to these two muppets. However, there were plenty of candidates for 'arsehole of the millenium' on the opposition. They made it 3-0 soon after to the sound of plenty of 'ah-ya's' and thanks to Ewis for pulling a consolation out of the bag towards the end. Adam Scott gets my MOM. Wave the league goodbye boys! Mind you, lets hope they don't win it either.

Asterix Reds 5 Swoosh 1 (Cup)

Here's an equation you may have missed in GCSE Chemistry.
Swoosh+8 men+Thunderstorm=One shite afternoon
I had more fun when I was circumcised.

Liverpool SCM 2 Asterix Reds 0 (League)

In a tight encounter, Asterix Reds went down 2-0 to a resilient Liverpool Supporter's Club.

The game started as it was to continue, with Liverpool putting men behind the ball whenever we had possession.  This made it hard for us to pass our way through their defence as we like to.  Liverpool set up to hit us on the break using their best players - a sharp and skillful centre forward and wide midfielder - to good effect whenever they got the ball.  We had the first clear cut opportunity after about 15 minutes:  Shashi was clean through on goal, only to cut back in be thwarted by a tackle by their last man.

But it was Liverpool who were to open the scoring.  A short diagonal ball over the top found their striker who had gotten away from Anthony.  He made no mistake, taking just one touch to knock the ball into the back of the net past Jonesy who was coming off his line.  

Jonesy was in action again shortly after, as he dived full stretch to push a shot on to his left hand post.  It was a great stop that any 'keeper would have been proud of.  Asterix Reds had been quite flat up until this point but this save seemed to get the rest of the Asterix Boys going and we played the last 15 minutes of the half the much better side.  

The centre midfield pairing of Andy and Ian began to get a better share of the ball.  Shashi on the right, was a constant threat, using his pace to get behind his full back at every opportunity.  We put a few good balls into the box and won a fair share of corners but didn't create anything in the first half worthy of a goal.  We came in at half time in good spirits, albeit a goal down, but full of confidence that - as long as we shut down Liverpool's attacking threat - we'd have enough of the ball to create good opportunities to score.  

The second half started as the first had ended.  We continued to win the midfield battle and earn more than our fair share of possession.  Again, Shashi caused problems down the right.  We played the game at their end of the pitch but the number of men they had sitting deep made it difficult for us to find the space to create quality goal scoring opportunities.  We were restricted to half chances, shots from distance and several (wayward) free kicks from just outside the box.  Shashi had one great chance to score but his shot sailed over the goal.  The goal hadn't come in the first 20 minutes of the half but as the game wore on, I thought - given our pressure - a goal was inevitable.  But, Liverpool sealed the win with a fine breakaway goal.  

A ball from deep released their winger down our left.  The winger did well to beat Mark  and then passed inside Anthony as he closed him down.  The ball found their centre forward who jinked from side to side to evade a couple of challenges as he moved into the box.  And, as he had done all day, he cut inside and then slotted a shot into the net to make it 2-0.

We still had 15 minutes left to play and I felt we could go on and get something from the game.  We pushed men forward and threw the ball into the box regularly.   Adam had a great chance to get on the score sheet but hit his close range shot straight at the 'keeper.  The game ended with lots of action in the Liverpool goal mouth, some desperate defending and a couple of good stops by their keeper.  But our reward was not to come and 2-0 is how it ended.  

This wasn't our best performance and a MOM is hard to pick as few of us played to our full potential.  I'm going to give it to Mark Jones in goal for a tidy performance in goal, but mainly for one great save in the first half. 

For us, we need to learn our lessons, look at the positives and refocus on the league.

We had more of the ball and more shots today but didn't create enough good chances to score.  This is partly because Liverpool defended with men behind the ball.  This meant there was little space to pass our way through them.  But we continued to try and look for the killer ball and press whilst they were deep.  I'd like to see us play with more intelligence and, more important, patience when teams set up like this against us.  We need to have the confidence to pass the ball around the team, move the ball in and out, and draw teams out of defence to create more space in the final third for our strikers.  Second, when they did play a high line, we didn't capitalise with good balls over the top.  In this situations I want to see the midfielders make their passes early to give the strikers a chance to time their runs.   Not once did I see a midfielder run from deep to beat their offside trap on Saturday.  This could have made a massive difference.  

We now sit 4th, 4 points off the top of the table.  All teams have 6 games to play and all the top 4 teams have to play each other.  For sure, all the teams above us will drop points during the next 6 games.  In this sense, our fate is still effectively in our own hands.  I'd like to see us get back on track with a win against Kepong Chinese who we play at home in the league next week.

POW were all those that didn't turn up for the after match drinks at the Social.  It was a very good night out.  Adam and I ended the night dominating affairs on the pool table, eventually calling it a day at 4am and using a rather unconventional means of transport to get home.  Bring on the next night out!  

Asterix Reds 1 USJ 0 (Cup)

Not a classic, but a deserved 1-0 win with Jonesy incredibly scoring with his penis in the last minute of the game. I kid you not, he 'knobbed' it in the back of the onion bag. The rest of the game can be described as a battle. I can never compare sport to the trenches of WW1, but we got a very small taster of what it may have been like today. I myself am nursing trench foot at this very moment. It was a quagmire in the first half, and we were playing against a team that will undoubtedly be in the top flight in a couple of seasons. Ian Quirk got a deserved MOM as he battled like a trojan in the centre of the park and POM, well, this is contentious. I mean Keith fell down the stairs at the start of the game which got the ball rolling. Then there was Jonesy, auditioning for a part as a German Infantry soldier getting shot in the second half, Sweeney for his kick off in the first half etc etc etc. However, a man that was not even there today gets the nod. Mr Stu Cavens for giving the excuse of not coming to the game as he was shopping with his gay interior designer.
Last but not least, do you remember that Orangutan that very kindly took the place of one of the linesmen in that match many moons ago. Well, he turned up again today and brought his mate with him who very kindly offered to referee the game as the actual ref had to pull out.

Asterix Reds 6 DHFC 0 ( League)

Scuse if this is a short match report but this computer is playing up. I may as well be writing it up on a ZX81. 6-0 and Shaun Sweeney as deserved MOM bagged a hat trick. Hats off to the man. His positional play is second to none and a blind man could find him on the park with a sense of knowledge for the game. Also, hats off to Yogesh who popped up in the right place at the right time to notch a brace. Keep your hats on for Adam however, who was nutmegged twice by the 60 year old centre back and gets a harsh POW but he did find the back of the onion bag, which makes his award even harsher. DHFC are a strange team. There is no way we are 6 goals better than them but they seem to lack penetration and pace. They have some good players. Perhaps they need some Crystal Meth to pep them up before the game. Bloody hell this computer is really slow. I may as well be playing Horace and the Spiders on it. Time to go!

Asterix Reds 5 - Kepong Chinese 3 (Cup)

Our second cup game saw us see off Kepong Chinese 5-3, but we made it difficult for ourselves!

Ending up with only a bare 11 we had several players playing out of position, most noticeably Adam playing left mid and Mark Howland right mid. 

We started the game very poorly and conceded two sloppy goals almost identical to those BM nicked against us a few weeks ago. Two long straight balls over the top leaving their striker one-on-one with big Keith. Clearly the two incidents knackered Keith who proceeded to send Bala to fetch the ball everytime it went behind the goal!

After our disastrous start we composed ourselves and started to play some decent football. We got the first back thanks to a stunning strike from Mark Howland, who despite having a mile of space decided he'd better strike the ball first time. Who can argue with the results?

By this point we were really in charge of the tie and despite the referees best efforts we grabbed the equalizer. Some quick thinking from Mark Howland found Shaun Sweeney at the front post from a quick corner, Sweeney managed to slot the ball home from a tight angle. 

Half-time 2-2. We talked about keeping things simple and playing our football. We were bossing them and felt like we couldn't lose the game at this point. Again we had to have a chat about keeping our composure with the referee as we were starting to get a little wound up by his laughable decisions. 

We started the second half well and were never really under pressure. We went ahead when yogesh was brought down by a clumsy challenge in the box. Once Sweeney had wrestled the ball from Mr Scott he slotted the pen away comfortably. 3-2

By this point we were really growing in confidence. We started to push forward and look for the fourth. We got caught on a bit of a counter attack that resulted in a corner. From the cross their striker placed a bullet/looping 15 foot header in under the cross bar, there was a shout of 'keepers' but to be honest their were at least 10 players closer to the ball than our big man in goal! 3-3.

We did well to recover from this as this was completely against the run of play. Thankfully Bala had decided enough was enough and ventured forward with a fantastic surge towards the opponents penalty box, most centre backs would get a nose bleed in this situation (as demonstrated by Jonesy a few minutes later), but not Bala, he calmly looked up and played a simple pass to Yogesh to tap in our fourth. A few minutes later Mark Howland got on the scoresheet again with a great right-footed strike from just inside the box to seal the game 5-3.

The game was summed up when one of the Kepong players put in a disgustingly late stamp on me and was rightly shown a straight red. 

P.O.W goes to Keith! Sorry big man but I wasn't the only one to comment on the headed goal, but what really gave it to ya was making Bala do the running for the goal kicks!

M.O.M I give my vote to Mark Howland for a solid performance, two goals and a piece of quick thinking at a vital time in the match.