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NLCFC vs Camden Athletic.
MAL League Away Game, Market Road NLCFC
3 Camden Athletic 3 NLCFC
An
obvious case of hubris led to the Cricket’s first truly appalling
performance of the season. Having
annihilated the opposition in their past three encounters, the
availability for the game was not great. Some of the willing replacements
were rather short of match practice and the lack of midfielders meant that
this area was unavoidably filled with players out of position. Talk of the
margin of victory before the game was equally unhelpful as was, in
hindsight, the change from a 4-4-2 formation to a 3-5-2. Excuses
out of the way though, the Crickets failure was ultimately down to a lack
of passing craft in midfield, which u led to them resorting to route one.
This tactic in itself, although ugly, would have been effective, if
NLCFC’s normally reliable goal scorers, hadn’t had a collective off
day, Ben Wakeford in particular spurning a host of chances. One
must give credit to the opposition who at times played with the pace,
skill and composure that the Crickets
lacked. Nevertheless, the goals of the game reflected its overall low
quality. Athletic opened the scoring when their no. 10 (man of the match
by a street if one ignores his pathetic diving/shirt pulling/rolling
around in fake agony), latched
onto a lazy cross-field pass and finished with aplomb. The
Crickets equalised soon after with another lazy piece of defending was
well punished by Guy Nicholson. A backpass to the keeper was charged down
by the Yorkshireman with the Ball falling at the feet of a defender who
froze for too long when confronted with the strikers continued run. The
ball was tackled into the net. An
undeserved lead before half-time was clinched by Mark burns. 35 yards form
goal, on the left wing, he sent over a cross that caught the breeze and
drifted over Athletic’s flailing keeper.
Halftime
saw a return to 4-4-2, but this was not going to be enough without an
improvement in midfield. Unfortunately a lack of fitness in this area, on
a punishingly large pitch, meant that this improvement never came.
Wakeford topped off an awful display with a fine own goal, misdirecting a
clearance into the corner of the excellent Hall’s net. Athletic then
went ahead with the game's only decent goal. A long ball down the exposed
left flank was picked up by Athletics no. 10 who outpaced those attempting
to recover, and again slotted coolly home. A
couple of refereeing decisions (blatant penalty and ball over the line but
not given) looked to have stopped the Crickets from even salvaging a
point, but, right at the death, Mark Burns popped up on the left to hit a
well controlled shot into the far corner. The
Crickets face league leaders Music Choice next week in what could well be
a promotion decider. Rather than allowing this undoubtedly awful
performance to sour an otherwise excellent season, we must attempt to
learn from it in order not to make the same mistakes again. Pride is a
feeling best felt after, rather than before, a game.
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