Home vs BPR FC 29Oct23

Match report by Ciaran Larkin.

Our first game in almost a month and the conditions were as expected, rain. Today we were looking to bounce back after our loss against Slade Green, and with new signings Matt and Romeo, our new keeper, in the squad, we hoped we could turn our fortunes around and find our form from the start of the season. The game started and we could easily see that BPR wouldn’t be a pushover, as they were physical in the midfield, so we had to combat this. The game at the start was both sides getting decent opportunities but no real shots on goal. We went ahead though as their pass back to the keeper was anticipated and cut out by Arthur who then found the inside of the post to give us a lead, but they quickly replied as their left winger cut inside and found the top corner with a curling and dipping effort. The game then started to be fought more in the midfield between the two sides, and we soon regained our lead as a throw in down the left found Ciaran, who teed up Jude who lobbed the onrushing keeper to make it 2-1. That was one of the last actions of the half as we found ourselves 2-1 up at half time but knew we could be playing better.
The second half started, and the conditions got a lot worse as it was pouring down, they also got a lot more opportunities compared to us, and it paid off for them as a short corner resulted in the ball bouncing in the box, and their player was free from about 10 yards out to strike it into the bottom corner to equalise. They then started to pile on the pressure onto Romeo, but several good saves kept the game at 2-2. They did find the back of the net a couple of times but they were both given for offside, but even then that was a huge let-off for us, but they finally found the lead as their long ball over our defence found their left winger who caught Romeo off his line, took the ball down the line and passed the ball into the net with about 10 minutes left to give them the lead. We tried to get back into the game, had a good chance from a corner but Alex’s header was just wide. This was the last significant threat we posed going forward before the full-time whistle went after dismal conditions reflected the game.
This was our second loss in a row and meant we lost more ground from 1st in the league, but we will still go again next week to amend this performance. A massive well done to Romeo, whose debut and MoM performance was one of the few silver linings and kept us in this fixture for long periods.
We go again next week Lions!