Squad: Cunningham, Eryoruk (sub: Knott), Maliki, Nielsen, Lewis, Dehombreux, Alves, Reynolds (sub : Gutierrez), Magaud, Ruiz, Braun

After four victories in five matches against top-teams, the Thirds recently missed two opportunities to definitely be back in the promotion fight, due to two defeats against the worst teams in the league…

On this cold Saturday, the start-up was again quite hard. And as the kick-off was whistled, we fumbled the first ball coming in defence and the opposite forward received a nice Christmas gift for his last home match of the year, the ball in his feet, and a all-made-goal. 1-0 down after twenty seconds… that was probably the quickest goal of the year. But we did not give up.

Union thought they did the most difficult part by scoring first, and they felt confident, but avoiding the Thirds from scoring is bit more difficult. And it was forgetting Braun, who put, in fifteen minutes, the Thirds back into the match. On a cross coming from the right for Ruiz, there was a handball from a defender and the referee showed the penalty spot. Braun-I-scored-half-of-the-thirds-goals was ready to do his job… and did it perfectly, 1-1.

The Thirds were then totally back in the match, heads up, first mistake forgotten and a couple of minutes later, Braun-I-scored-at-least-once-on-my-last-eight-matches, alone around the box, free and not attacked by defenders decided to shot, great idea the keeper missed the save and the ball passed under his chest, 2-1. We were confident and kept this result until half time.

Second half started as the first one stopped, some seldom runs from Union were quickly stopped by Maliki and Nielsen, serious and authoritarian. Pressure up-front was increasing due to Eryoruk and Lewis crazy runs on their wings and their contribution was about to pay. On a right-side free kick, Reynolds gave a perfect gift on Magaud’s head who send the ball in the top-right corner, 3-1.

With two goals up, the rest of the match should have been easier, but Union, on an insignificant action, tried to put pressure on us, their forward, outside the box and without any solution, fired a weak ball, directly on our keeper, but a defender touched the ball and send it away from Cunningham… 3-2.

Union’s players started to believe again in a victory and were shouting they could score two more goals, were they trying to impress the Thirds? Missed. On a goal kick, the keeper decided to play quickly with two players on his left side, who were not looking to the ball, and Magaud who came for pressure, stole the ball between the two defenders, ran towards the goal, and just outside of the box fired a shot near first post (special thx to X-mas for his shooting exercises during training) to give the Thirds a final advantage.

4-2 with ten minutes to play, “the mass was said”, Union was no more one and their players started to shout to each other. After a good work from Alves, Dehombreux infiltrated the opposite box and gave the ball to Ruiz who scored the last one, 5-2, final clap.

With a serious match and in spite of a difficult start, the Thirds won this one easily, still one more before the X-mas break, so let’s win it guys ;-).

MOM : Magaud