A hard earned draw against a useful Cray Valley. We were without Sam Adams ,who was working, and an injured Davide Rodari. However we welcomed back Adam Lovett, excellent especially in the first half and Sam Beale.Elphick and Stone make an excellent dual centre back pairing but feel Ollie Black lacks a bit of pace. Daniel and Ben huffed and puffed all afternoon and got very little out of the Cray Valley defence. Our best chance was a superb header from Jack Dixon well saved by their keeper. To balance things up they did hit the post. So a reasonable start, bring on Tuesday night. Nearly forgot to mention our superb support....must have had half of the 150 crowd.
Well summed up Phil. Good away point and clean sheet. Bring on Tues. Hythe lost 7 2 they were one of the fancied sides along with Ramsgate, who also lost
I went to this match on Saturday and to be honest I couldn't wait until the referee blew the final whistle and was extremely pleased with the point we got as we never ever looked like winning the game apart from Jack Dixons excellent header towards the end that their goalkeeper tipped over the bar. That and a shot straight at their keeper by Ben Pope in the first half was about our only efforts on goal.
They on the other hand looked much more fitter than us, quicker on the ball and sharper all across the pitch, and with a bit more composure in front of goal could have won it. Louis Rogers made some excellent saves and kept us in the game.
We couldn't seem to hold onto the ball for any length of time, and our usual passing game didn't seem to be working either as they closed us down very quickly, and Ben Pope and Daniel got nothing out of their solid defence.
On a plus side our defence seems a lot more solid than last season when we were leaking soft goals, and with the return of Sam Beale can only get even better. Still not sure about Ollie Black though.
We still don't seem to have eliminated the passing of the ball around the back four though and eventually back to the goalkeeper who just kicks it up field anywhere which he could have done in the first place! I think that these fast opposition forwards are getting wise to this and are closing us down very quickly as we are playing a very dangerous game in doing so and getting nowhere!
Still it is early days yet but if we have any intentions of winning the league or the play offs then we need to improve considerably on today's performance.
good point away
