Erith & Belvedere 1-4 Welling United

Team : Jordan Busby, Chris Dunphy, Sam Wilson, Jack Badu (Joel Thompson), Mark Eaton, Matt Vitty (Josh Smith), Ed Willoughby, Ian Brooke, Gabriel Odunaike, Rishi Nankani, Charlie Hookway (James Cummings)

Unused Subs: Matt Steer, Ollie Green

Scorers: Gabriel Odunaike (8), Charlie Hookway (49), Matt Vitty (67), James Cummings (75)

Kens Comments:
“Very pleased to get the result. Difficult pitch to play on as very uneven, not full size, and delighted with the result. We coped very well in difficult circumstances, and came away with a few knocks. We received no real protection from the referee, but our football won through.

Another man of the match performance from Gabriel who scored again, but worked tirelessly from the outset, closing their defenders down, and never giving them a moments peace.

Well done to the 2 boys who came in and each scored, and to James who came from the bench to score. A pleasing performance, but as always still plenty to work on.”

Bruno’s comments:
Welling took control of the game from the outset and didn’t let up when the rash tackles came in. A change in formation saw Rishi move into the slot behind the two strikers where he worked hard despite many questionable tackles.

From my point of view the most skilful football was played in the first half when there were some really nice sequences of passing moves and Welling should have come in at half time leading by more than one goal, particularly since they had a goal disallowed for an extremely dubious offside decision.

The second half was a real battle where the superior football won the day with Welling scoring another 3 goals. After the 3 permissible substitutions had been made Rishi received a head injury and had to be withdrawn leaving Welling with 10 men for the last third. Erith then came more into the game and managed to score their goal.

As far as the refereeing went it is a pity that the referee seemed much more intent on clamping down on dissent than the fouls that were committed. You can accept that he won’t see everything but the volume of fouls which went unpunished makes me, for one, question his priorities.

A good performance from the boys who now have 7 points from a possible 9 and on goal difference are sitting second in the table.