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GAFFER ON THE WORTHING GAME

GAFFER ON THE WORTHING GAME

Tracy Dale18 Apr - 07:00

Played Tuesday 15th April

I thought this game had everything, and certainly from a management perspective, it was one of those that left you drained.

CHUFC 3 - 3 WORTHING UNITED / Half-time 3-0
Goals: Sangjoon Baek 2, Archie Morgan.

On Saturday, we had been nervous and not at our best, so much of the pre-match preparation was about trying to relax the players, reinforcing their self-belief, and reminding them that Worthing, as good as they are, would be worried about us.

Straight from the kick-off, we were penned in and spent the first two minutes stuck in our own half, but we retained a good shape and remained calm. When we did get out, we immediately looked dangerous. Of late, we keep saying to put the ball into an area that asks the opponents a defensive question, and we are getting better at that by each game. From one such phase, we won a free kick in a good area, and Archie's precise delivery allowed SJ to score with a stooping header with a favourable deflection. A great start again, and my thoughts immediately turned to Saturday, where an almost identical start had been followed by a lethargic showing, but that wasn’t the case this time.

In my opinion, we were showing signs of the fluency that had been apparent in some of our recent bigger wins, and we were in total control, and the only concern was that we had only scored once. Archie extended our lead with a tremendous long-range shot midway through the half, and SJ added a third from a corner that Worthing couldn’t deal with, and as we approached the half, we had been near perfect. Just before the break, a long ball into the box caught out the visitors' goalkeeper, and he was grateful to his defender for scrambling his mis-placed punch off the line. At the time, the significance of this was lost on me, but with what the second half brought, bizarrely, it may have been a turning point.

The talk at half time was that our opponents were now even more dangerous as they had nothing to lose, but that if we continued to do things properly, we would be ok. I even thought the game might open up even further for us and that we could score again. What happened next I didn’t really see coming, although at no point, even at 3 0 did I think the game was done.

At the start of the half, we were doing ok and did actually have some good possession and half chances to get that next goal, but from Worthings' first real attack of the half, 5 minutes in, they had pulled 1 back. We inexplicably had left a man free in our box, having been dragged too far over to one side, and despite his uncontested shot being saved, they were first to react and had their goal and lift . We became disjointed and untidy, and I felt we were making a lot of unnecessary mistakes, and some of our decisions were rushed and of no benefit to what we had set out to do .

A somewhat bizarre moment went for us, which I think was correct but probably not for the official reasons given, when an uncontested drop ball in our favour was touched first and taken goalwards by the Worthing forward, and following a real mess of a situation, the ball found its way into the net. A long delay saw the drop ball taken all over again, with us this time electing to just kick the ball long. We were definitely nervous again, and this worsened when, midway through the half, Worthing scored again from a corner that we didn’t deal with. I felt all of the momentum was with the visitors and needed to be better for the final quarter of the game to secure the win.

We did settle a bit and started to have a few moments and when correctly awarded a penalty with about 15 to go this was our chance to put the game out of sight. I absolutely saw this as a pivotal moment, as if we had scored, I think the energy from Worthing would have gone, but our spot kick was saved, and they had yet another lift. I guess it was inevitable now that they would score again which they did as full time approached although with the correctly added stoppage time there was probably 8 or 9 minutes left and to be honest at that point I just wanted the game done as I felt if there was to be a winner it wouldn’t be us.

Before the game, I would have been happy with a point, but we are all guilty of changing our aspirations based on where the game is, and so obviously having had a 3-goal lead at the break, there is some disappointment. That said, it's another point against a good opponent who has every chance of a playoff place, so we will see over the next week or so just what it means for our own push. It keeps us ticking over and in with a chance, and with 3 games to go, that’s all I can ask for.

Gaffer Glynn Stephens
First Team Manager

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