Guillem Balague: Brilliant bounce back after poor Christmas

Zero points from what should have been a very achievable six over Christmas and New Year was far from how we wanted to wave goodbye to 2016 and welcome in 2017.
Guillem Balague.Guillem Balague.
Guillem Balague.

Most worrying, however, was the stumbling way they came about which made our match against Oxhey Jets especially significant.

And for a while, despite coasting into a two goal lead, this was still up to then, a performance far below the standards we are looking to build on this season.

Consequently we allowed Oxhey Jets back into the game going in at the interval level at 2-2 and then fell behind when they scored early in the second half.

What followed then was probably the most important, and perhaps defining 35 minutes of the season so far.

Depending on the conditions and the environment we play a style that tries to build from the back with a combination of quick passing and movement along with high pressure.

We totally dominated the last 35 minutes and won by the odd goal in seven, although what was really pleasing was the way that it was achieved.

For my sins I filmed it on Periscope for the club’s twitter account and managed to catch a couple of the goals although it’s safe to assume I didn’t show sufficient skill the other side of the lens that would suggest I should give up the day job.

That said I am staggered to see that to date more than 8000 people have watched the clips which says more about the potential power of the medium than I ever could.

I congratulated the players in the warm down and the general consensus amongst everyone was then, and remains now, that this is precisely the type of style, approach and game plan we need to sustain between now and the rest of the season.

We are still looking for U17 players. Josue Carrasco will be in charge of the side for the rest of the season. He is the physical trainer for the first team so this is yet another opportunity for us to implement our plans which are a symbiosis and organic link between the first team right the way down to our youngest sides.

Our aim this season is to finish in the top six and if we play as we can there is absolutely no reason why we should not manage that.

We now face five games between now and the end of January with the first three of them at home. Maximum points from all five games is a tough ask but is far from impossible. We start with the visit of Colney Heath on Saturday.

See you there.

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