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City rediscover their spirit

- 07/11/2009

Bearsted 1 City 6

After recent disappointments, City would have been happy to win 1-0 against fifth placed Bearsted. Scoring half a dozen, including a Dave Read hat-trick, was a welcome surprise and showed that a revival of team spirit, if allied to practical tactics, could yet see the club move up to join the top performers of the division.

Everything about this display was so much more positive than those of most previous weeks. The confidence instilled by the relentlessly vocal instruction and safe hands of new goalkeeper Paul Hyde was paramount. His distribution was the foundation of any number of attacks. The defence and midfield linked well and having Read alongside Royston Gough in the centre of attack gave everyone a target, not least Scott Lawford who played probably his most confident and productive game of the season.

In a word, the difference was attitude. Every player must have felt supported by another and with so much positive movement, the options for the player in possession were much greater than of late.

Not that in the opening stages City were fully in command. Bearsted are a competent side who, despite going a goal down early on, looked capable of overcoming their setback. They kept the City defence under pressure and but for some haphazard shooting might well have avoided a heavy defeat.

City manager Dave Fairclough again had to make some decisions that had risk attached. Anthony Searle was asked to play at left back instead of right and another defender, Luke Jackson, was moved into midfield, where he chased and harried the Bearsted defence alongside Joe Smith and Craig Southern, both whom had outstanding games.

It was obvious from the start that having Read as a striker and ball-holder was the key to a change of fortune. Whereas in previous weeks City had struggled to win the ball in the air and us it to advantage, here Read continually either moved it on to Gough and Lawford or back to the midfield players who keenly came up in support. The links between defence, midfield and attack, which had been tentative before, now became the chain of attack.

The Lawford, Read, Gough trio first succeeded in the tenth minute when they worked an impressive move that ended with Read stabbing in a goal that provided self belief for the whole team. But Bearsted responded strongly. Hyde had to fall quickly to his left to push the ball away, conceding a corner. City beat it out but Bearsted came back at them. Two shots seared across the face of the goal while another was deflected away for one more corner.

City gradually pulled themselves together. Lawford kept providing openings. Read prodded a shot close after Gough set him up, but Hyde was soon back in action, dropping on a solid ground shot. Read and Gough again worked well in partnership when moving into the penalty area but Read's shot flew past the post.

After half an hour City scored probably their goal of the season so far when in a superb crossfield movement Gough found Lawford with an instinctive pass and the centre that followed was powerfully headed in by Read.

Hyde remained alert to Bearsted's breakways, including catching a shot that cut through the defence and gave him little time to react.

City's third goal came out of Gough's persistence when he was scrambling in the goalmouth as the ball came back off the goalkeeper. He returned it to provide City with a half-time lead that ought to have taken all the fight out of Bearsted. Ten minutes into the second half and a long pass from Read saw Gough run through and crack in the fourth.

Gough was unlucky to scoop an attempted shot after another inviting pass from Read, but the defence then reacted slowly to a Bearsted counter-attack that allowed Jeff Swift to head in and give the City fans a sense that perhaps, after all, this was not yet 'game over'.

Fairclough made some changes, including bringing on three player