Middleton 1s 7 - 0 Crawley 2s

Middleton 1s 7 - 1 Crawley 2s

Crawley travelled to the South Coast following a poor first half of the season and were looking to end it with a positive performance. Both teams started positively forcing some great saves from Chris Rockingham and his rival goalkeeper. Theo Hillman having the best chance but the Middleton keeper denied him. The first breakthrough came which saw a good team move by Middleton expertly finished from close range. The pressure continued to build and a move down Crawley's left hand side and a pull back to the top of the D for a hard shot to make its way through 6 players to the unsighted keeper Rockingham. It remained 2-0 until the end of the half.

Crawley spoke about making their chances count in the Middleton half and to pressure sensibly when looking to get the ball. The second half started similarly to the first with Crawley applying all the pressure but unable to turn that pressure into goals. Middleton then moved up a couple of gears and started to find gaps in the Crawley defence and with slick moves were creating 2 or 3 on ones against the Crawley keeper. Some brave last ditch tackles from Ian Berry kept them at bay but some ill discipline from Dan Burnham saw him receive a green card. Middleton continued to pressure and were able to turn chances into goals and when they saw Crawley's heads drop they put their foot on Crawley's throat and managed to make the scoreline finish 7-0.

Captain Chris Rockingham commented "I can't fault the work rate of my team but we can't let our heads drop during a game as teams will capitalise. We now have a 4 week break so we need to refocus our efforts to ensure we remain in the league. We have a cup game on 2nd January which will be a good warm up for the league."

Team: Chris Rockingham (Capt), Chris Lewis-Brown, Ian Berry, James Ortyl, Ollie Robinson, Tom Jarvis, Russell Hales, Josh Haworth, Dan Burnham, Greg Charman, Johnny Lewis-Brown, Theo Hillman

MOTM: Chris Rockingham
DOTD: Dan Burnham