With no scheduled league match this weekend a hurriedly rearranged fixture with newly promoted Liden Community gave ASC Youth the opportunity to top the table if a win could be gained.
With a few of our players missing through injury and other commitments, taking a squad of only 11 wasn’t ideal, but it gave the players who played an opportunity to cement their places in the team.
Curtis made a brilliant save in the opening minutes of the game to deny Liden from taking an early lead. But then Kez started his goal fest with a lovely finish off the outside of his foot and into the bottom corner and when Aaron went on a mazy run and drilled in a quality low cross, Jack made sure he was on the end of it, 2-0. Jack then put Kez through for number three before Perry did likewise for Kez to complete his hat-trick, before Jack sent us into half time 5-0 up with a neat finish from Kezza’s pass.
Having gained a comfortable lead, ASC now started to play some good football and next came the move of the match when Aaron worked hard to win the ball before playing an exquisite pass to Kez who was lurking on the half way line. With nothing else on, Kez had no option but to go it alone and he outran 2 defenders before dinking the ball over the advancing keeper from 20 yards.
Josh then got himself on the score sheet, cutting in from the right before drilling his shot across the keeper. With 2 more from Kez and a good powerful low strike from Aaron this completed the scoring.
After the ‘Ed show’ in midweek, where he managed to score 4 goals, today turned out to be the ‘Kez show’ as he went on to score a double hat trick. But today wasn’t just about the goals, there were a lot of solid performances which is a very good sign. Aaron in particular was excellent today and is really playing with a lot of confidence and consistency this season. Joe Pettit was again the rock at the heart of defence and Perry and Lou seem to be forming a good understanding in the centre of midfield.
Although I thought these were the pick of the players today, everyone else put in a good shift which in turn made for a good all round team performance.
Final Score: Liden Community 1 – 10 ASC Youth