Double clean sheet against Wycombe 2s

The game back in October between these two sides finished as a 1-0 win for Ashford so we went into the game quietly confident. We spent most of the team talk calming down Ashford's very own Sergio Grant as to not repeat his actions of last game - assisting a goal and then getting yellow carded with our backs firmly against the wall and clinging onto the one goal advantage! With six of our regular squad players away this week, Ashford 2s put their strength in numbers to good use to put out a very strong youthful side. All but four players in the team had come through the Ashford ranks in recent years proving the standard of young talent currently at the club. Long term serving member Paul Neyton also celebrated his 50th birthday during the week to selfishly dragging our average team age up.

Ashford started by far the better of the two sides pinging passing around like PacMan air hockey and using the wings to our advantage. The first clear chance of the game came from the young target man Sam Betts lifting the ball through the defenders legs and spinning to drive at their D. This move was later dedicated to our usual target man Matt Emmerton who has been on the floor all week, too ill to move. The ball was then squared to Rob Grant and greeted with a good save from the diving Wycombe keeper. The rebound was then followed up from a narrow angle by on form Adeshpal Aulakh - narrowly avoided the far top corner. This spinning reverse hit must have disoriented the young winger as he later went on to play in nearly every position on the pitch.

Ashford remained on top with the majority of chances and looked the stronger team with a youth/experienced backline of Darren Cole, Andrew Barnes, Matt Sutch and James Maitland. James had been called up moments before pushback from the 4s game to help us out and provided both defensive and attacking confidence which had been lacking from previous weeks. A Wycombe drag flick provided the only action for Ashfords Captain 'not so' Anonymous (Ryan Croxon) needing a strong diving stick save high to his right. Far more action than he experienced during his skiing holiday to Bulgaria the week before.

Chance after chance went by with even defender Billy Bassett finding himself unmarked on the far post but unable to turn in the opportunity. Fapping, I mean flapping, frantically to get his shaft on the end of Robert Forster's high wayward ball to no avail. We also looked very deadly from short corners with both Bassett and Matt Law emerging from the shadow of Shujah ur Rehman in the 1st team to provide an promising short corner option for the 2s. Matt saw two efforts fly just past the post with another requiring a decent save again from the Wycombe keeper.

The game ended 0-0 with Ashford coming off the pitch the more disappointed of the two sides. With only two points separating 8th and 12th, Ashford are still sitting one off the bottom in 11th position.

Photo credit goes to Steve McCarthy from Soccersnaps. See the link below for more high quality photos from this game:
http://www.photoboxgallery.com/soccersnaps/collection?album_id=3979923323