A Friday evening match so it must be the last weekend before Christmas. It was also the last home game of the year. It turned out to be a good crowd of 5788, with 99 making the trek from Accrington on a chilly evening. But then it is December and we should expect some cold weather.
There seemed to be a number of first time visitors to the Abbey coming to the CFU Cabin for directions, including a couple of chaps from California who were having a soccer trip to the UK. They watched matches at Reading on Thursday, U’s on Friday, then seeing Man City on Saturday, pretty good going!
Starting line up: Eastwood in goal, Bennett, Jobe, Watts and Gibbons at the back, midfield of Brophy, Hoddle, Mpanzu and Mayor with Kaikai and Appere at the front. That is what I thought when I saw the line-up, but the formation played had Watts on the left of Jobe, Gibbons to the right. Mayor wide left, Bennett wide right with Mpanzu, Hoddle and Brophy in the middle in a 3-5-2 formation.
The majority of the first half I felt was scrappy. U’s gave the ball away far to many times. Gibbons had a long shot go wide, Appere heading over from a Bennett cross.
The referee let some strong challenges go early on, Watts involved in a hard but fair challenge, no free kick, both players got up, shook hands and got on with the game. Then he seemed to penalise U’s and Watts got booked when it looked to me like another 50/50, but their players shouted and after a couple of seconds a free kick was awarded to Accrington. The challenge seemed to injure Watts and he needed treatment and on 38 minutes Rossi came on in his place.
Into the 6 added minutes and a spell of U’s pressure with a series of corners from which Kaikai did some trickery to make space for a low cross which was deflected back for Gibbons to shoot into the corner from around 15 yards. 1-0.
Half time: 1-0. 50/50 draw ticket #02117 won £577.
Many of the players from the 2013/4 squad (double Wembley winners in case you had forgotten!) were on the pitch at half time to receive their Hall of Fame certificates from Mark Bonner. Kwesi Appiah, Tom Bonner, Tom Champion, Josh Coulson, Adam Cunnington, Rory McAuley, Ian Miller, Harrison Dunk and Greg Taylor all getting great applause from the fans
U’s continued to push in the second half as they attacked the NRE, Kaikai shooting just wide, then was put through on the left but his shot was blocked by the keeper. Bennett had a powerful shot (or was it a cross?) from a tight angle pushed away again by their keeper..
On 59 minutes came the second goal, good play on our left enabled Mayor to cross and Kaikai got in front of his defender to head the ball in at the near post from 6 yards. A Kaikai headed goal is pretty rare!
Accrington had a bit of possession but were limited to long shots, only 1 forced Eastwood into a save, the rest were high and wide or blocked at source.
Lavery and Mcloughlin came on for Brophy and Appere on 79 minutes, 5 minutes later Knight replaced Kaikai and U’s saw the game out.
Final Score: 2-0.
The second half was better than the first, attacking the NRE (Corona end for the older fans!) in the second half is always best.
The team seems to be getting into a rhythm where players and formations can be changed without causing a problem. A sign of a good squad. Another good sign is how all players look to do defensive work, and bust a gut to block shots, or push up to compress space for Accrington to play in, especially from their goal kicks
Scoring goals continues to be the biggest problem, so it was nice to see Shane Lavery back. To keep his hamstrings warm and supple on a cold night if there was a stoppage in play the rest of the team huddled around him! OK, that only happened once, and it was when there was an Accrington injury and the team went over to chat to Neil Harris, but it seems a good idea!
Apparently Glenn Hoddle was at the match watching George Hoddle. I hope he was impressed how George looks as if he has been playing at this level for a while.
The win moves us back into the play-off, but with most of the rest of league playing Saturday we dropped back to 8th. It is all very tight in L2 at the moment! Our next 2 games are away at Gillingham (just below us) and Chesterfield (just above us), so could define our season. It would be greedy to ask for a points return of 4 or 6, however I would be quite happy with 2 or 3.
My journey home was a bit around the houses! Very slow through Fen Ditton because the slip road to the A14 was closed, some people turned round, some like myself had a mystery tour in the dark through Waterbeach to get back to the A14 at Milton. A couple of junctions later and the A428 turnoff was closed, so a further diversion to St. Ives. On the positive side I was able to listen to the post match interview with Neil on Radio Cambs on the way back.
Merry Christmas.