James Goddard took advantage of not having a midweek fixture for the first time since the opening week of the season and got the team back on the training ground.
James’s tactics and in game decisions were spot on. Westbury set up to take advantage of the pace they had upfront and every player executed the plan with quality, confidence and bravery.
The early exchanges were pretty even, the Westbury forward line were leading by example constantly pressing and hassling the Portishead players, Portishead with last seasons top scorer Ollie Trevarthen upfront were always a danger. The first goal came after 18 min, Sean Brereton did some good work on the left and then squared the ball for George Bendle to finish into an empty net. Portisheads number 3 Ollie Carter had a brilliant dribble in the 25th minute skipping past a few Westbury players but Trevarthen had drifted into an offside position when the pass was made. The first half finished with Portishead showing that they have real quality but Westbury dealt with it well and where dangerous on the counter.
The second half started with ten minutes of end to end football. Westbury’s attackers where intent on getting the ball and running at the Portishead defenders, Bendle won a free-kick that was about 20 yards from goal slightly right from centre. Jamie Jordan stepped up to take the free-kick but it was straight into the keepers hands. A few minutes later Bendle was running at them again, this time he got into the box and Carter recovered well to make a well timed tackle to keep the score at 1-0. Charlie Heydon made a few routine saves, the Westbury defence was standing strong and restricting Portishead to a few half chances. Otis Young came on for the excellent Brereton and this seemed to be a slight tactical shift that only Jordan Pinder appeared to be aware of, Pinder went on a marauding run up the pitch charging past the Portishead players this caused panic in the Portishead defence and in Heydon who shouted, “Pinder what are you doing?” as Pinder beat another man and got a powerful shot away to force a save from Fraser Meldrum in the Portishead goal.
Jordan’s superb performance was over when he was replaced by Nathan Hallettt-Young on 80 minutes. Westbury made sure that the score matched their performance on 81 minutes when Young received the ball out on the left wing, he had no support so had to protect the ball whilst the other players made up the ground, Bendle and Mattie Mantay came sprinting up the pitch, some great interplay ended with Bendle inside the 18 yard box to the left of the goal with only the keeper to beat, Bendle froze the keeper moved the ball to the left and placed an excellent finish into the net.
To come away from Portishead with an excellent performance, two goals and a clean sheet is exactly what Westbury deserved, every player was excellent, James and Karl made the right decisions from the bench and got the whole team playing.
Westbury’s next match is at home to Cribs in the FA Vase Saturday 24th September.
Westbury: Charlie Heydon, Jordan Pinder, Dave Atkinson, Jordan Lawrence, Matt Jones, Jake Stephenson (C), Jamie Jordan, Ian Groves, Sean Brereton, Mattie Mantay, George Bendle. Subs: James Hounsell, Otis Young, Nathan Halllett-Young (used), Karl Freeman (unused).
