Tue 6th Oct 2020
Spartan South Midlands Premier Division
Potton United 3-1 TAFC First team
TAFC goals: Joe Naylor
For our second trip in 4 days into the wilds of Bedfordshire we travelled with some hope after a decent display on last Saturday.
Despite the copious rain over the last couple of days the pitch was in good condition. We were still missing Ollie Butler and he was joined by arguably our best player over last couple of games, Harrison Cornick. This gave the players who had been on the fringes an opportunity to stake a claim.
On a relatively short but wide pitch our performance was acceptable for the first 25 mins and the last 15 mins.
On 5 mins Callum Shortt cut in and his shot was deflected just wide of the near post for a corner. On 15 mins Connor Goodliffe had a presentable opportunity but only found the keepers midriff with his weaker foot.
A couple of corners weren't taken advantage of at the far post. Too often the final pass was played into difficult areas as opposed to playing in front of a teammate to run onto. We kept our opponents at bay, letting them play at the back and generally dealing with attacks.
On 27 min one of a series of well delivered corners resulted in a scramble which led to a Joe Naylor goal.
Within 90 seconds their central defender was allowed to run 50 yards without anyone pressing him, a poor attempt at a tackle and no real attempt to stop the play was compounded by a massive gap which appeared in the back 4 for the equaliser to result with a tidy finish.
The game then swung on the next 10 mins. The hardworking Joe Naylor nicked the ball from a defender and set Callum Shortt and Joe Chott off on 2 v 1 approaching the area. A poor ball into Joe made his task much harder and the result was we struck the bar instead of regaining the lead.
As often happens we paid the price when an individual mistake from the normally reliable Johnny Pitts in goal resulted in a 2-1 scoreline at the interval to our hosts.
We are what we are, but once again a poor decision not to play a ball up the line resulted in a 3rd despite a good initial save.
For 10 mins we looked all at sea as a now confident Potton Utd played some tidy football.
Our 3 subs were introduced at one and the same time and whether it was Potton relaxing or our influx of energy we slowly improved. Unfortunately a number of crosses failed to hit a dangerous area and the Frankie Hercules missed a simple header and Joe Chott blasted over.
In our search for a goal we allowed our opponents to create chances but despite a couple of alarms there was no further damage.
I don't decry the time and effort these lads put in but a combination of maybe the journey, a couple of the players being below par (hopefully they know who they are) , missed chances resulted in yet another defeat against a side who played some good football BUT were allowed to.
We now look forward to the FA Vase on Friday at Edgware Town.
As ever a winnable game, but we need to take a long hard look at ourselves.
Jonny Pitts, Paolo Bagatti, Kevin McManus, Adam Murphy (Frankie Hercules) Gareth Terblanche, Will Salmon, Will Foley, Connor Goodliffe (Prince Nimoh)
Joe Chott, Joe Naylor, Callum Short (Clem Asante)
Subs not used Lewis Dwight, A.Bryan