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.