Our opening 20 minutes was as good as we've been all season. We were good out of possession, working tirelessly and smart, good in possession with players happy to receive the ball in tight situations. We played with just 1 or 2 touches in most of our passing phases and had decent final passes and crosses into the box. It brought us 1 goal through a good shot from Kai Neil-Gray on the edge of the box and we could have had possibly more such was our advantage in the game at this point.

Arundel is a good team and I knew the pattern wouldn’t remain for the whole game. They made a slight adjustment to their shape and everything changed. We were under way more pressure and at times were relying on some last-ditch defending and good goalkeeping to stay in front, however, they deservedly equalised just after the 30-minute mark. To be honest this was our leanest spell of the match in terms of possession and territory so I was grateful that we reached the break all square.

We spoke at half-time about what they had changed and how to deal with that and reminded the lads that we had been well on top in the opening exchanges by being brave and playing with some risk. The approach at the start of the second half was excellent and I thought the game was level again. There were chances at both ends, probably with our GK Sanghyun Baek having more to do than the home keeper, but we took the lead again when Archie Morgan swung in a cross come shot which the defender could only divert into his own goal. I felt we needed a big 10 minutes to frustrate Arundel but just a few minutes later we were all square again. The goal was disappointing twice over as the free kick was taken a good 15m from where the foul was and despite pointing this out to the referee he did nothing, secondly, we allowed 2 free headers in our penalty box.

Both sides made changes as the game entered its final 20 minutes. We looked to freshen up our team with 3 lads having run their race and 1 who was on a yellow card and at risk of a second. The pattern stayed much the same with both sides having opportunities the best of which seemed to have fallen for us when the referee awarded us a penalty having been right on top of the incident only to some time after consult with his linesman, who was 45 metres away. The decision was overturned without explanation so we had 10 minutes to see out with the scores level.

By now I was settling for a point but with 2 minutes left on the clock, we got the winner when Louiss Brooks shot from the edge of the area finding the bottom corner. Somehow an additional 7 minutes were played although there had been a number of substitutions, 3 goals, and a lengthy delay around the penalty so it was probably right but it just seemed a lot on a day when we had to deal with a number of decisions that hadn’t gone our way.

We saw it through and the all-round nature of the win was very pleasing. That’s 5 on the bounce, 4 of those in the league. We have another free midweek and then it's at home to Godalming Town on Saturday.

Gaffer Glynn Stephens
First Team Manager