As I've gotten older, I've learned to still enjoy a game of football, even when we lose. That was the case as we went down 1-0 to Notts County today, and I enjoyed it despite learning next to nothing I didn't already know.
I knew for instance that Alex Bass was a good goalkeeper. He demonstrated the fact often enough to win the man of the match here, but I already knew it anyway. Equally, anybody who knows anything about football knew already that if you miss a hatful of chances, the football Gods have a habit of making you pay. Not only do you pay, but the Gods rub your nose in it by having you concede a goal of truly comedic quality. I knew all of that already, but anybody who didn't before this game does now.
Let's be clear though, missed chances aside we were absolutely excellent here. The first half in particular was a magnificent performance against an excellent team, the best I've seen from us this season by quite a way. We utterly bossed the first 45 minutes and had we gone in two or three up, Notts County could have had no complaints.
Inevitably being one of the best teams in the league and given the fact they were playing at Home, County improved a lot in the second half. Even then though, despite them coming right back into it we still had our moments. At the back, we continued to look as solid as a bank vault (thanks to some brilliant interventions from James Ball, Riley Harbottle & Ryan Johnson). This was bodies on the line defending of the highest order, then just as I was patting myself on the back for my after ten minutes "0-0 bet", a calamity occured.
I've played in and watched enough football matches to know that things aren't as easy as they look, obvious mistakes not so obvious in the heat of battle. Owen Goodman though looked to me like he got kind of wrongfooted by a header bouncing towards him. Whether it was the striker directly in front of him swinging and missing which deceived him or whether it bounced like a Shane Warne ripper I'm not sure, but something confused him and the defenders and it trickled in. In fairness to our young goalie he redeemed himself with a brilliant save down on his left side moments later, but the goal knocked the stuffing out of us for a good ten minutes or so.
There was still time for us miss the most golden of chances when Josh Kelly got his legs platted and couldn't quite capitalize on his anticipation to intercept a back pass. Again, no blame being dished out here, stuff like that happens. He made the chance himself by getting there in the first place, sometimes they just don't go in. You could though sense the collective groan as it felt that it just wasn't going to be our day, and so it proved.
There is NOTHING though to be gained from belly button rummaging after this game. I don't care how big the bit of fluff you pull out is or what you tell me about our away record, we were excellent here and deserved at least a point.
Notts County were good too, that's because they ARE good. They are certs to be in the top seven, on this evidence so are we. And that's what you get when two excellent teams play each other and there's nothing between them, fine margins decide it. We came out on the wrong side of it today, but if we play like THIS away from home every time, we'll win LOADS of football matches.
COYD
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