Farnborough FC (under 15s) vs Hawley Raiders FC

Going into the season with a new squad, playing in one of the most competitive divisions in the country and only a couple of friendlies and training sessions together, I expected at least a month to adjust and develop a system and a way of playing that suited our new team. However, in our first friendly versus Oxford City I saw enough to encourage me that we might develop more quickly than first anticipated.

Two defeats followed, but there were some positives to take from both games and apart from a knock in confidence, I there wasn't much to worry about.

In our second league match today, we took apart our boggie team - Hawley Raiders - scoring EIGHT goals in the process. Some of those goals were superb and with players in our squad who have that level of ability, it makes the rest of the matches we have ahead of us very exciting indeed.

That said, we are still very much "work in progress." I'd like to eliminate all break away/counter attacking goals completely. We like possession and our game relies on it, but if we do lose the ball we must work very hard to win it back and certainly delay the forward momentum of the opposition until our defence is back "in balance."

This is the "beginning of the beginning," so we still have a lot to get through in training. Matches and results are only the result of hard work in training. That's where we will really make the difference. 

We'll finish our defending topics this week and move into transition and playing through the midfield. After that, we can move onto wide play and forward topics.

I'm pleased to say that Ben Bartlett (FA Regional Dveelopment Manager) will be taking a session with our squad on Monday. In my opinion, Ben is one of the best coaches in the country and it's great that he supports our squad with the these sessions.

So, marching on. We have Carshalton next Sunday and if we can use today's win as the basis to work from, we can get a run going and build some momentum, for the challenges ahead.