Match Report

Back to league action and the same old story I'm afraid. After the previous week and the graft that was put in by all we slipped to what was a terrible defeat and in truth I think our worst performance this season by some distance.

A slow start to the game, a bit of a feature of all our play this year saw Cray Valley get a few early crosses in which were by and large dealt with well by the back four, anything that wasn’t well saved by Georgie in goal.

We did though then get our act together and take the lead, Ben Slade picking the ball up and winning what to be fair was a fortunate free kick, their centre back probably felt he won the ball but the studs were showing and the man in the middle gave it. Chris Charlton stepped up, hit the target with the left peg and their keeper let it through his hands for 1-0 three minutes from the halfway stage.

Just as big a mistake though was the equaliser, Cray went straight down the other end, a very poor corner was slung in and confusion between Giorgio Fullone and Geogie Burkett saw the former move off the goal post, Georgie was stranded and you guessed it, they have scored direct from a corner.

Half time and we all agreed we had a lot more to give, we were playing within ourselves and really should’ve been winning the game. That said their equaliser didn’t cost us this fixture. Second half started and Cray took the lead. Luke Hutchins robbed in the middle they went forward worked a few passes together and somehow scored from 25 yards on the half volley. Hands up I shouldn’t have given the ball away and probably should have lumped it long rather than trying to play. Costly to say the least.

From here as a team our heads dropped, and to be honest we lacked winners in the team, all of a sudden we looked like a team who had accepted this game was getting away and soon fell further behind, this time a cross being converted courtesy of a free header 8 yards from goal.

Overall we missed a few chances, but we didn’t really test their suspect keeper and we lost a game that if we're going to stay in this division we need to be winning. As a team we've got to come back from this, in my opinion we have too many good players to go down but I think we need to make a conscious effort to take more responsibility as individuals and want the ball more. If you give it away you give it away.

Onwards and upwards, cup fixtures the next couple of weeks, maybe it will prove a welcome distraction but I think we’d all rather be playing league games to be honest. It will come good I’m sure.