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UNITED SHARE THE POINTS IN A DULL ENCOUNTER

Posted on April 18, 2010 | Categories : Archives | 0 Comment

As I was driving down to London this morning, I was thinking to myself what a wonderful day it was for playing football, and watching also – how wrong I was. Today PUFC’s fixture was away at Wheathampstead, which ended up 1-1.

We were missing three key players, and it sadly showed in our performance.

The ground was very hard, due to the lack of rain, which the players soon found out that it was hard to control the ball, especially in the middle. For once we did not play against giants, but as I feared from the off, they were a very organized outfit and started stronger than we did.

The chances were very few, and front man Aniello Mone worked tirelessly running the channels, but with little support.
Wheathampstead were winning most off the 50/50 balls in midfield, and they had tenacity running throughout their team, making it very hard for United to get a grip on the game.

For the first time this season we did not score in the first half, and the score at half time was a goalless 0-0.

As usual we had a few words at the break, on how, and what not to do in the second half, and we started knocking the ball about a little better, and stretching their back four, which shortly afterwards led to a goal.

The ball was played into their goalmouth, and looked like it was going out, but a great piece of athleticism from A.J.Ross Low, pulled the ball back, and top scorer Aniello Mone stuck the ball home from close range, making the score 1-0.

The turning point of the game came just two minutes later, when Aniello Mone fired in a great shot, but the opposition keeper made a brilliant save, stopping it at point blank range. We had just started to get on top and I am sure if Aniello had scored that effort, we would have gone on to win comfortably.

Wheathampstead kept pressing forward, but our two central defenders, Renee Banao, and Ryan Suyat, were playing very well as a unit and hardly put a foot wrong all day.

Then the strangest thing happened… The referee awarded a free kick against us for no apparent reason, as the ball was already on the other side of the field.

I am sure, all you PUFC fans know me from my weekly column, that I have no bias towards PUFC, and I always give a fair, accurate view of the whole game, but I have to say that the referee made a very bad call when he blew his whistle for this so-called foul.

They took the free kick, and through a batch of players, somehow the ball finished up in the back of our net, making the score 1-1.

The referee is only human, as we all make mistakes, but that was a costly one, and it could well damage us for the Championship.

That is how the game ended, and to be fair, we did not do enough to win it, as we did not take our chances. We sadly missed our hard-man, Marco Ordona in the middle, and we did not control the game like we usually do, but we are still the only unbeaten team in our league, and have five games left to play, so lets hope we can get back to winning ways next week.

Unfortunately there were not many good performances, only average ones, but I have to say that Aniello Mone held the line well, and chased everything down both channels. Raymond Tordecilla and Michael Cepillo tried hard to get things going in midfield, but they could not riddle away from their markers very often.

The two best PUFC players were without doubt, Ryan Suyat, and Renee Banao, with the latter just edging it for the Man of the Match. Sorry I could not bring you another victory story, but as you all know, “That’s Football”.

I will finish on a good note, if we win next week against fellow rivals Rickmansworth, we shall be promoted to Division One! So all you PUFC fans here in England, get down, next Saturday, and cheer the team on. Check our website for fixture details, and by the way! Keep the faith!!! Come on PUFC fans lets see you there in your hundreds, and get us promoted in style.

Yours in Football,

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