Leven FC vs Harchester United
3 - 2
22 August 2018 · Right Car East Riding County League<br>Premier Division
Away friendly match played on 22 August 2018.
Kicked off at 6:30 PM
3-2
vs Leven FC
Away friendly match
The match can be summarised in a number of phases. In the first thirty minutes Harchester controlled the game with patient possession which lead to a number of chances and restricted the home teams to limited possession. In the attacking half.
In the next fifteen minutes before half time the changes lead to further control, and a neat goal taken well by Benson following good work on the wing from Foster and Chadwick. There were further good chances which will need to be taken in what will be a challenging season ahead.
Then the half time curse which broke the momentum. Failure to look after the ball and maintain the Control enjoyed in
The first half opens the door for the home side to get themselves into a game they had no right to following a dominant first half by Harchester. A free kick followed by a full stretch save from Evans lead to a corner where the home attacker headed in from 10 yards following Harchesters failure to make an arial challenge. It was a top drawer header but looking at the replay there were two Harchester players who should have been watching the ball and making a challenge.
Worse was to come following further failure to look after the ball in the middle allowing Leven to attack with Harchester facing their own goal, the defensive struggle lead to a Leven penalty which they finished to make it 2-1 with barely three minutes of the second half played. To make matters worse a further example of failure to keep the ball and control the game meant a break through a static midfield/defence allowed Leven to make it 3-1 far too easily.
At this point Harchester could have fallen apart, but to their credit they dug themselves back into the game, got the Control back that had been missing and created more than enough chances to avoid losing the match. Snuggs made it 3-2 with 20 to go and Harchester continued to surge forward. The only criticism could be that too much of the attack came from long through balls rather than patient positional bios up to create more overlaps.
The positives come from the periods of dominant possession, the improvement must come from better care of possession when in the defending half. All three goals came from lost possession in the Harchester half, each time the ball eas turned over in the Leven half they struggled to break down the visiting defence. The key is you defend better with your back to your own goal rather than facing it. A lesson that needs to be learned before the season starts. Another positive was the attitude and determination to get a result. Playing top opposing next season a negative reaction to anything that goes wrong needs to be replaced by a determined reaction to make it right.
All in all a good effort, disrupted by typical preseason changes and missing faces due to holidays so all will be good.