Hillingdon-Away

Hillingdon Borough 3 - OCFC 1

On a wet & windy night the Youth team bowed out of the League Cup with their poorest performance of the season so far.

Playing against a team from a division below we didn't show any appetite for the game. I don't like to make excuses but our lack of regular football was apparent in showing a great lack of match fitness.

Playing on what was a poor pitch didn't allow us to play any type of passing game & our wide players who are normally 'free flowing' runners could not get the ball in front of them to allow them to run at defenders. This was a game where the fittest & more commited were going to come out on top.

Although we took the lead from a well taken goal from Jetmir Kamberi we still looked second best in midfield & with the distribution from defence very poor Hillingdon were able to have more time on the ball & therefore make more use of it.

After the break we seemed to push on much stronger but with Hillingdon's 1st attack we allowed a high cross to come in which we didn't deal with & a simple tap in resulted in the equaliser. Our heads dropped & we lost shape which is unusal for us. Hillingdon's 2nd came from another poor clearance which went straight to a Hillingdon player & with our goalie out of position he had the skill to chip the ball into an empty net from 30 yards. Again another poor clearance straight to them resulted in a through ball for their forward to beat our goalie in a 1 on 1 situation.

All in all I take nothing away from Hillingdon, they 'wanted' to win this match more than us & I always say if you can't match commitment, strength & the desire to win in your opponent's you will always struggle.

Again we have to wait 2 weeks for our next match, but I know we can bounce back. We have a very strong team spirit which will come through & enough quality to put this behind us.

One last thought though, whenever we wear the yellow kit we always seem to struggle, I think wearing the blue & white hoops seems to increase the players ability by at least 20%. Physcology maybe!

Duncan Colwell Youth Team Manager