Lee Slade

GK

Paul Judkins

DEF

Matt West

DEF

Mark Zinkoweich

DEF

Peter Green

DEF

Matt Williams

MF

Chris Payne

MF

Angelo Santini

MF

Paul Dobson

MF

Andy Payne

F

Simon Braine

F

Steve Montgomery

MF

Martin Southall

GK

Rob Djemal (c)

DEF

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In a game where Saracens were looking to close the gap to top of the league to a point the chance slipped us by after suffering injury hell before the game. Rob was lost during the warm up leaving Mark free to make his full debut for the club. Chris assumed the responsibilities as the captain.

So onto the game, after a quick reshuffle we were off. With the game only 2 mins old Westy went in for a 50/50 challenge and felt his ankle give way, this forced him off the pitch early with Monty coming on into midfield and Matt dropping into the defence.

From the resulting corner we made a mess of the clearance allowing Wodson to score from 6 yards 1-0 4mins played.

Saracens struggled to adjust to the changes and found ourselves under a lot of pressure before we was able to get hold of the ball, we weatherd the strom for 20mins then started to gain some control of the game, Angelo received the ball out to the right and swung in a cross which Simon knocked on, Andy controlled well from inside the are before making a yard and dispatching his lobbed shot over the keeper and home 1-1 20mins.

As the game progressed Saracens made some good chances before Simon was felled requiring lengthy treatment on the sidelines before coming back on. The first half was like pinball and with the sun in our eyes we struggled to get the ball clear and make any serious chances on the Wodson goal.

Half time came to our relief so we could regroup, we knew we were struggling and in bad shape but had to make do with what we had today.

Out we went for the second half and started to play a bit of football, when we moved the ball we looked dangerous and created some good chances which the Wodson keeper did well to keep out with Simon hitting the crossbar from 20 yards out.

As the game progressed we still looked messy at the back which presented Wodson with to many chances, in front of goal 1 on 1 they found themselves wasteful with Lee hardly having to make a save.

As the game progressed, Angelo again found himself with the ball after Chris had tracked in well to win the tackle, his flighted cross was met by Andy who returned the favour and slotted Simon in to place his shot across the keeper and into the back of the net 1-2 65mins.

Then disaster struck, from KO the ball worked out to the right and the Wodson player was able to make a run of 50 yards unchalleneged towards goal to cross for their second 2-2 66mins, very disappointing indeed.

From the restart Saracens looked dead, and struggled to make any impact at all, then from an inoculous pass Wodson broke through to win a corner. Marking had become absent as the ball sailed into the box allowing the player at the far post a free header into the back of our net 3-2 68mins.

Saracens now looked totally stuffed but managed to dig deep to find a way out, with no other options on the bench we had to grind something out here.

Job was done after Angelo played Dobbo in towards the edge of the area, he left his man and found himself chewing the grass after a clumsy challenge to earn Saracens a penalty, up stepped Andy to place his spot kick into the top right corner, keeper had no chance. 82mins.

With time running out Saracens were pushing hard for a winner which should of come, after Matt was played through he ran onto the ball and struck a sweet shot that hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced a good 2 yards over the line, goal surely… nope the keeper clawed it out and then off for a corner under challenge from Simon, the referee checked with their Linesman who rather surprisingly said the ball didn’t cross the line, so a corner then, nope, the referee gave a goalkick. Incredible scenes of remonstration fell on deaf ears as the ref continued.

Saracens didn’t create to much more as the game died out and we had to settle for the draw. 3-3 90mins.

Manager Martin Southall said “Today was just to frustrating for words, with a few players missing and new injuries we looked in trouble from the off, we defended badly and couldn’t use the ball to any good effect, on the positive side we took 3 very good goals but today we came up short, it is not right to criticise individual players out there and certainly not a defence which was at best makeshift, they stopped more certain goals with some good play but it was harsh on them today. We have to get over this quickly and back to winning ways if we are to close the gap further, it is upto us now to prove that we can bounce back quickly, although the really big pitch didn’t help us much today. Onto next weeks game were a win has become that bit more important.”