Late Penalty Takes 3 Points

This morning we succumbed to our first defeat of the season at Uni Strollers. It was a difficult result to take given our performance, but in the end we were made to pay for some below par finishing, especially in the first half.

Having been well beaten on our previous two visits to Surrey Sports Park, manager Matt Gibbins opted to change system in order to give us a more solid defence. Given the fact that the previous 5 matches between the two sides had seen over 30 goals scored, it is fair to say the change worked.

It is certainly no exaggeration that on another day we could have had the points wrapped up at half-time. Chances came and went at regular intervals in the first half. Luca Mortellaro, making his first start of the season, created two great openings for himself. Firstly having beaten his man with ease he saw his effort brilliantly blocked, and he also dragged a shot wide when through 1 on 1 after surging through their backline.

Alex Zammit also missed with a presentable chance, Luca worked the keeper from Charlie Elliott's cross, Oli Cochrane hit the side netting after Luca's lay off and right at the end of the half Luca's corner caused chaos and Tom Frost, Zammo and Silvio Sorce all had efforts blocked.

As well as this there were a number of occasions where our final ball just wasn't up to scratch when in fantastic positions.

Defensively we were superb and while you could see Uni's attacking threat was there we limited them to only one decent chance, but Ryan Pardo-Roques did really well to delay their striker in the box before his lay off was fired well wide by their right winger.

Uni certainly improved in the second half and it became a more evenly contested game. Clear cut chances weren't as easy to come by for either side. We had a goal disallowed after Zak Whitelock tucked home from Oli's strike that the keeper had spilled. He was marginally offside and it was closer than their linesman suggested.

Luca forced their keeper into a good save after he skipped past his man down the right hand side, while Uni's right winger hit the side netting and their captain saw a shot go a yard wide from the edge of the box.

With 10 minutes to go we were pressing for the win. A 0-0 draw would have been a poor result given how we had played. Our hosts are always capable of producing quality though, and their skipper picked the ball up 30 yards from goal, broke into the box and was upended for a penalty. For the 3rd season in a row at Surrey Sports Park we conceded a spot kick and it was smashed home in confident fashion by their right winger.

We had defended brilliantly both as a team and individually and had been punished for losing our shape and concentration for the briefest of moments.

Uni had to hold on to their win as Lorenzo Favata and Elliott Jones both had efforts cleared off the line from a corner, while they almost scored an own goal after a mix up between a defender and their keeper but the ball went narrowly wide.

We had limited last season's Division 1's top scorers (64 goals in 13 games) and the Division's most potent striker to very few chances, but ultimately were undone by our own profligacy at the other end. The goals will come.

There were plenty of positives to take from this game, but unfortunately no points. We will need to be more clinical next week at Witley Wanderers.

MoM: Silv - thrived in a new role this morning. Read the play really well and made some important challenges and interceptions.

Huge thanks to those who ran the line, came to support and to Andy for filming.