Match Report

MATCH REPORT
Rayners Lane 2 Enfield Borough 0

Enfield Borough’s losing run stretched to four matches after defeat at the hands of Rayners Lane in the Division One Cup on Tuesday evening. While no loss is desirable, dropping out of this competition will not be regarded with any great regret by the visitors.

In a strange move by the league, not only are the twenty one Division One clubs included in this competition, but also six from the Development Division comprising of under-23 teams from Premier Division clubs. This makes the competition bigger but appears to be of little overall benefit, a non-league version of the EFL Trophy where Premier League teams play their under-21s against teams from Divisions One and Two for the chance to play at Wembley, a move that met with much criticism when it was introduced. The low key nature of last night’s game may be reflected in the team’s approaches to the competition. Borough welcomed back some of their missing players from six days earlier, but were so short of numbers that they could only name two substitutes including thirty-seven year old manager Anthony McNamee. Returning to the starting eleven were Dragos Stefanoaica, Malachi Soile, Carl Adiku, Rinidie Lokilo and Juan Olave in place of Tarell Annakie, Brad Roberts, Gideon Sarpong, Craig Nelson and Kevin Mussunda.

Short on midfielders but brimming with attackers, the unbalanced side set off positively after Stefanoaica had dealt with an early tame effort by Hassan Al Murtada. Korede Akande seized on a long ball out of defence and tried a speculative long range lob that landed on the roof of the Rayners Lane net whilst Walid Hirsi made inroads crossfield with a dazzling run before passing to Olave. The winger outpaced his marker before firing in a shot from a narrow angle that drew a save from Charlie Patmore in the home goal. However in the tenth minute the hosts took the lead when a ball was slipped through the Borough defence for Johnny Gill to run onto and he calmly rounded Stefanoaica before placing the ball in the empty net. The keeper spread himself well to block a shot from Rob Hastings while a slip by Rob Magwood presented the ball to Akande, but outnumbered five-to-one the striker was unable to do anything with the possession.

The game drifted along with little purpose, but it was noticeable that when Enfield tried to play their way out from the back, the hosts were quickly closing them down, either forcing a mistake or a long ball downfield whereas when Rayners Lane tried to do the same, the Borough players stood off them, allowing them time to build up play. On the rare occasions that Borough did try a pressing game, Lane looked every bit as vulnerable as the visitors. In a rare noteworthy attack Hastings headed a cross towards goal only for Gavin Hinds-Cadette to clear from under the bar. Akande’s evening finished just after the half hour with a tweaked hamstring before Lane doubled their lead in the thirty-ninth minute. For all their nice build up work, Lane’s final ball had been very poor and the goal came from another aimless centre which found Anish Sharma rather than a team mate. However, the defender was pressurised by Hastings into conceding possession and the striker set Al Murtada away to beat Stefanoaica with a calm finish.

Borough resumed on the attack after the break and a Lokilo drive forced a good save from Patmore. Rayners Lane had the ball in the net on fifty minutes but Hastings was given offside as he bundled the ball home after Stefanoaica had saved Gill’s initial effort. The keeper foiled Hastings after the striker was set up by Zakari Otto while Hastings got the ball in the Borough net once more only to be denied for a foul on the edge of the box. The hosts dominated the third quarter of the match and it took until seventy one minutes for Borough to create their best move of the game. Olave attacked down the left, his centre was laid back by Lokilo to Simon Offei whose shot brought a diving save from Patmore. Lokilo hit the sidenetting with a shot, but had already been adjudged offside while the hosts hit a couple of shots across the face of goal without anyone being able to get the decisive touch, but the game petered out badly. One goal from Borough could have dramatically changed the course of the game, but they never looked like scoring and Rayners Lane were able to cruise into the next round.

Enfield are at home to Cove in the league on Saturday, kick off at the Maurice Rebak Stadium is 3pm. They will be hoping to complete the double over their opponents in order to bring their losing streak to an end, but without some of their first choice strikers, it will prove to be a much more difficult task than the first game back in early September when they scored six times without reply.

Team; Stefanoaica, Sharma, Wopara, Hinds-Cadette, Soile, Adiku, Offei, Hirsi, Lokilo (McNamee), Akande (Udoji), Olave