Malaysia. Despite having the lion's share of possession and chances,
Asterix Reds did not do enough to put away Mancis; a fine Terry Harris
strike securing a point after Mancis had taken the lead against the
run of play.
Asterix Reds started this game playing some of the best football we've
played this season. We got the ball away from the soggy centre of the
pitch and to the flanks early. The strikers and wide midfielders
linked well to deliver some quality balls into the box.
Unfortunately, the ball never quite fell for us and we failed to
convert our dominance in the first 20 minutes into goals. Mancis
always looked like they could threaten us on the break and created a
couple of half-chances with fast counter attacks in the second 20
minutes. Neither team could break the deadlock and we came in at half-
time at 0-0 but confident that we would take the lead in the second
half.
But it was Mancis who were to break the deadlock. After about 10
minutes of the second half Mancis counterattacked and put a ball
across our box. An unlucky deflection off our defender's chest sent
the ball to the back post where the Mancis player was unmarked. He
made no mistake and finished to give Mancis a goal against the run of
play. This spurred the Asterix Reds back into life and we began a
period of dominance that quickly resulted in an equaliser. Danny
Burkahrd made a surging run from the back, collecting a square ball
from Ian Quirk, beating a couple of challenges before sliding the ball
through to Terry Harris in the right channel. Terry did well to beat
the defenders and get some space for himself inside the box. But with
an angle more acute that Roy's CLT cough to shoot into, we all thought
Tel would opt to square the ball across the box. But shoot he did and
the ball rocketed past the 'keeper into the back of the net. 1-1 and
it was game on.
We continued to press forward for the last 25 minutes and used our
possession to create some additional chances. Their keeper made a
superb stop from a Ghani Malik effort that was headed for the top
corner. We reverted to a 3-4-3 formation for the last 10 minutes in
an effort to take all 3 points and continued to threaten a winner.
John MacGachie - making his first appearance this season - was a
handful up-front and thought he'd scored the decisive goal only to be
perhaps harshly ruled offside. Terry Harris also had a chance to
score with a towering header from a corner late in the game, the ball
going just over the bar.
I know we didn't get the the result we wanted from the game yesterday, but
we have to take comfort from our performance. We were playing the
team that's won the league for the last 2 seasons and is top of the
league this season. We dominated the game in terms of possession and
chances, we restricted to Mancis to a couple of half-chances on the
break and just lacked that little bit of luck and ruthlessness in
front of goal that would have given us the victory.
The result moves us up into third position in the league (BMFC are 2nd and Mancis are top) and leaves us 6 points adrift of the leaders with a game in
hand. To win the league we thus have to win all our 4 remaining fixtures - BMFC twice, Astaka and Sang Chuan (all games I am confident we can win) - and hope that Mancis slip up. There's a good chance of this since Mancis' remaining three games are versus BMFC, Astaka and LSCM.
Even if Mancis don't slip up, wins in our remaining 4 games would guarantee us second place in the league, our best finish ever. Frankly, I have a feeling that Mancis will drop points in one or more of their remaining games and that this title race is still very much alive.
So, we need to put today's result behind us, maintain our focus and confidence and get
back to winning ways against Sang Chuan next weekend. They're a good side and we'll need to play well to beat them; a win versus Sang Chuan next week, keeps us very much in the hunt for the title. Let's make sure we retain our hunger and focus next week and do the business against Sang Chuan.
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