Saturday March 23
The win halts a winless run and gives us our second away victory of the season. With regular keeper Piotr Strycharz unavailable in came Under 18 teenager Patryk Kociolek for his league debut.
In addition a hasty change at the last minute saw Callum Jones added to the bench when he was able to arrive shortly after kick-off giving the Eagles a full quota of subs.
A special mention to Cal for making the effort – he certainly played his part in the 30 or so minutes he played. Full marks also to Liam Black whose surgery was cancelled the day before at the eleventh hour and Tyler Cobb who had a 5am start from Cornwall to get to the ground whilst Joe Harrison (dualled at Clifton) whose game was off also made a welcome return.
Tevie’s pitch was in fine fettle in view of all the rain and was in sharp contrast to last week’s pudding of a pitch the Eagles had to endure at Mickleover RBL.
Arnold were quickly in to their stride and after a poor clearance by the Tevie keeper, Liam Black was on hand to pick the ball up and thread a pass through to Tremere Lindo who calmly slotted home for the lead.
Having scored so early Arnold sensed opportunity to kill the game and a run from the half-way line saw Jake Ogden cut in and to his disappointment hit the outside of the post.
The missed chance to extend our lead was to prove costly with Tevie drawing level on 15 minutes. A high ball into the box saw Patryk come to collect and he was judged incredibly harshly to have pushed the Tevie striker when there appeared the minimum of contact. Tom Widdowson stepped up to take the resultant penalty and duly levelled the score at 1-1.
Joe Harrison was beginning to orchestrate things in midfield and always looked to have extra time on the ball to make things happen. The game continued to ebb and flow with Arnold largely in the ascendancy but Tevie always looked a threat on the break and Lenny Jenkins, Kyme Mason and Billy Bradley were kept busy at the back.
Patryk made an important save with an attacker bearing down on him, rushing out quickly to not only block but hold on to the ball under extreme pressure
Arna restored their lead 5 minutes before the interval – Liam Black who looked offside picked up the ball and deftly flicked it over both a defender and keeper to finish before ending up in an heap in the back of the net that lifted the portable goal of it’s settings.
2-1 up at the break and the Eagles were looking good value although the yellows would have liked a cushion of at least a two goal lead. Within a minute of the restart Toby Francis looked to have extended our lead but his close range flicked header came off the inside of the post. Shortly after Black converted from close range after good work from Lindo out wide but this time the linesman did flag although on this occasion the goal looked like it should have stood.
That was Blacky’s last contribution having once again run himself into the ground to be replaced by Callum Jones. Callum quickly adapted to the pace of the game and would prove to play an influential part over the remaining 30 minutes or so with his long range passing and work rate.
Further changes saw the hard working Lewis Neville replaced by Tyler Cobb and Francis, who had also put in a good shift replaced by Macauley Walker for his debut. ‘Macca’ was to suffer one of the harshest bookings of all time when he instinctively protected his face from a point blank rocket only to be yellowed for hands.
The game continued to be largely a midfield battle with Arna still unable to put clear blue water between them and their opponents and Patryk had to be on hand a couple of times dealing with difficult crosses in the breezy conditions.
With time nearly up a freekick on the edge of our area set alarm bells ringing but Tevie were unable to convert and we ran-out worthy winners to put us in good shape for next Tuesday’s visit of Holbrook to Eagle Valley (ko 7.45pm)
MOM went to young Patryk who rose well to the challenge of the step up to senior football and overall today brought a much more cohesive performance from the lads.
