Report

A much needed break from the League fight this week as we faced West Addlestone in the first round of the Hospital Cup giving us the chance to enjoy our game and rotate the squad around. Unfortunately we didn't get to enjoy it as much as hoped due to the torrential rain which meant we played most of the match on a muddy ice rink which was far from conducive to attractive football.

We started well and set up camp in the Addlestone half, the threat of Berbatrob up top clearly causing panic across the Addlestone backline allowed us time and space in midfield to attack their defence. It took just 5 minutes for us to take the lead, some good play in the middle from Ricky and Gilles released Oli down the right wing and he beat the full back then cut the ball back to Darren who slotted the ball past the keeper 1-0.

The rain then picked up as did the wind against us, this and a small chunk of complacency saw Addlestone come into the game a bit more and they put us under pressure with a succession of corners. We still had much more possession than our opposition but we were overplaying in the midfield instead of running at the defence which we knew would bring us joy. Another corner which wasn't cleared fully allowed an Addlestone player a shot from 12 yards which skimmed the top of the crossbar, this was the turning point for us and finally we woke up and got to work on attacking the full backs.

Good work on the left hand side allowed Rob space in the box and he played a nice ball to Valdeni who from a tight angle smashed the ball past the keeper at the near post 2-0.

Half time came and the message was fairly simple, don't over complicate it and enjoy yourselves by focusing on the positives. The second half wasn't even close, we played with smiles on our faces and despite not playing as well as we could have done we did enough to win the game and have a giggle at the same time.

Good pressure up top forced a couple of corners and finally Darren managed to get his head on one and beat the keeper, there were strong shouts for an own goal and against my better judgement I have credited Darren with the goal 3-0. The next goal didn't take much longer, a strong run from Ev on the right saw him beat 3 defenders then cut the ball back for Darren to complete his hat-trick 4-0.

We went down to 10 men with 15 minutes to go, Jon making a questionable tackle in the box got him a whack on the leg and he came had to come off but we had made all of our substitutions. It wasn't to matter as we then went on to score the 5th. Addlestone made the mistake of thinking that clearing the ball to the halfway line was enough after another of our attacks, they clearly hadn't experienced one of AC's 40 yard headed through balls before! AC's diving header from the halfway line sailed over the Addlestone midfield and defence and landed at Darren's feet for him to then slot past the keeper 5-0. This is only the second time in Albion history that a player has scored 4 goals in 1 match, nice work Daz.

That's how it finished, in all honesty it should have been more but we kept a clean sheet, had a giggle and rotated the squad so it was a good morning's work in my opinion. Massive game next week and we go into it with a strong squad and morale high.