Stirling Albion 2010 Reds 2 vs 2 Lenzie 2010

CSFA A League

Albion 2 - Lenzie 2

We welcomed Lenzie to Forthbank on Saturday and expected a tough game against a good opponent having a strong season. Always a good competitve game. With a few key players missing we had to go with a different formation and for the most part it worked really well.

Playing with the swirling wind behind us first hald we dominated for much of the half. Eman gave us the lead when his corner found the far top corner of goal, before Dan made it 2-0 after a nice move down our right flank involving Adam and Jamie before an excellent finish. Adam also had one cleared off the line after similarly good play down the left wing from Callum and Emmanuel.

So into half-time 2-0 and fairly comfortable at that stage although we knew it would be tougher playing into wind. First 20mins of 2nd half we were managing the game well - with Dan almost putting the game to bed with a close range finsih which crept by the post. However we then we lost a bad goal from our perspective. Through ball from Lenzie found their CF 5yards offside - we stopped to claim it and their insider right ran through and collected to finish. We need to be sharper there and play the whistle - although it was a marginal one with the CF within a few yards of ball before cleverly leaving it.

From there we were pretty solid and looked to be seeing game out well. Robbie almost made it 3-1 for us but again his cute lifted finish from the penalty spot scraped by the opposite post.

Into the last couple of minutes and from a simplae ball over the top we got in a fankle and a short pass back was toed home by the Lenzie forward. We felt we'd had the best of the game overall with most clearcut chances so it was a sore one late on. Credit to Lenzie for continuing to battle away - with them also missing a couple of big players. Despite that felt like 2pts chucked away.

MOTM - some very good performances particularly from a couple of lads playing in unusual positions. Ross was terrific throughout at LCB - not allowing their forwards a minute with aggressive pressing and ball-winning, Ellis was terrific stepping into midfield - typical all action performance, and Callum had a very solid game in midfield going in both directions.

Ross - just nicked the coaches vote today with another excellent all round showing.

We now move onto a key stretch of 4 away games and we need to be at our best to continue our challenge for the league with 6 teams in the hunt.