SENTINELCELTS

Morning,all.

This ended up as a perfunctory victory over a Motherwell side whose recent form has been as good as anyone’s in the league,outside of the top two. But for much of the match,it could have been so much more. Regardless,there were few signs of a reaction to our endeavours on Thursday night.

We started with

Forster

Frimpong Jullien Ajer Hayes

Forrest Ntcham Brown McGregor Elyounoussi

Edouard

This formation gave us a lot of variety up front and on the flanks,even if we could be a little static in the middle. The two full backs overlapped to great effect which allowed the two wingers to come inside in support of Eddy. How we only scored one in the first half is a mystery,but when we got another after only ten minutes of the second half,we simply eased off a little bit. That could have been the signal for Lenny to freshen things up a bit with a couple of substitutions. They eventually happened but they could certainly have been made earlier.

We started off lively enough,Elyounoussi and Hayes working the left were particularly in the mood. CalMac too started brightly,creating the first two major openings. First,a lovely pass from the centre of the pitch found Eddy on the left corner of the box. He took a touch then sent it across the keeper low to his right,but he got down well to tip it away. Next,he won possession deep in our half,burst forward and played a great ball to Mo on his left. He too took a touch,trying to wrongfoot the defender running across him,but he got a touch on it and the chance was gone.

His next intervention though bore fruit. Again,he played it out to Elyounoussi,this time in a wider position. He cut inside and played the ball to Jamesy running across goal. His first touch,with his right foot,was sublime,setting himself for the shot with his left-but again,a defender nicked it. This time it fell to I Wanna,and he made no mistake,a stunning right footer into the top corner!

Twenty minutes in,a goal up,let’s see where we go from here.

It wasn’t all one-way traffic,as Motherwell certainly tried to make a game of it. But their few opportunities were little better than half chances. One nil may be enough to win a match but it is never enough to relax! Ollie was next up in the creative role,playing a peach out wide to the onrushing Forrest. He looked up,saw Eddy free in the middle,but he could only scoop this one over first time when a touch to steady himself-or better,a flick to Mo on his left-might have yielded a better result. Forrest and Jonny Hayes were next in on the act,the former seeing his shot blocked,and Hayes seeing his rocket beaten out by the keeper. The halftime score line of 1-0 certainly didn’t do our play justice,but we settled for it anyway.

The second half began pretty much like the first,just more of the same. About ten minutes in,Eddy took the ball in a deeper position than he is used to and played the ball in behind the defence for Hayes to run onto. A first time daisycutter across the goal to the onrushing Ollie to score in the second successive game was thwarted by the Motherwell centre-half. He would have been better leaving it,because there was only one place he could put it from there,and that was into his own net.

Two nil,sighs of relief all around.

It took us about twenty minutes after that to get another decent chance,though Motherwell,to their credit,were defending well. With Ryan Christie on for James Forrest,he took the opportunity of a shot on the turn from the edge of the box,but didn’t quite catch it right. Jeremie Frimpong showed us another string to his bow when he fairly clattered in a shot on goal. It too was blocked,and a fair shout for handball went unheeded.

Next up,Eddy and Ollie combined,the latter seeming to give the eyes to the keeper before placing it low to the right. Sadly,the keeper wasn’t buying it and kept it out easily enough! Frimpong tried once more to get his goal,tying their defenders in knots before striking it low and hard. Yes,the keeper got to it to beat it out but on another day the rebound would have fallen to one of our nearby players.

It didn’t and that was how it ended. A satisfying result,a satisfactory performance. Nothing really to write home about but it was a job that needed to be done and we did it without too much ado. So we head off once again into an international break with a chance to recharge the batteries for some of our players and for some others to maybe recover from injury. There are five weeks to go after that till the winter break and a lot of football to be played in that time. We will need all hands on deck,that’s for sure.

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Above article by BMCUWP. It’s international break time,and you know what that means! Get your articles fired into us,please. Any and all subjects welcome,but Great Comebacks especially. Mail it to Mahe

sentinelcelts@gmail.com