Erdington and Saltley 2 – 1 Sutton Coldfield

Scorers – Ellis Jay and Treymaine

They say the sign of a good team is if they can win when they’re not playing well. I think it’s fair to say that today’s game will not be appearing on a DVD titled ‘Erdington and Saltley: The Greatest Hits’. However, a win is a win. If you play well and win you still only get three points. Today was a case of ‘getting the job done’ and making sure that we kept up our recent good form. That is now three league wins in a row and Ellis Jay and Treymaine both kept up their great goalscoring form. Ellis Jay made it three goals in his last three games, whilst Trey made it five in three.

The game started slowly and The Ton were arguably still half asleep. However, Sutton Coldfield couldn’t take advantage and the Erdington and Saltley defence stood strong for the first 15 minutes. The Ton offered little during the opening exchanges and struggled to get into any sort of flow, often playing the ball high in the air. However, whilst the score stayed at 0-0 there was always that danger that one team would get caught on the break. This is exactly what happened when the Sutton keeper saved smartly from Karter before Ellis Jay came steaming in off the right flank to tuck home his finish to give The Ton a 1-0 lead. They took this lead into the break despite Sutton having a few attacks from set-pieces in the closing moments of the half.

At half time we talked about the fact that we just hadn’t got into the game and were fortunate to be leading. In fact, it is the first time I have had to ‘moan’ a little at the lads all season! My inspirational half-time team talk obviously made a difference (not!) as The Ton continued to play scrappy in the second half, just as they had in the first. However, when a team contains the attacking threats of Trey, Ellis Jay and Callum, there is always the hope that one of them will pop up with a goal. Collecting the ball on the half way line, Trey darted down the left hand touchline, evading the tackles of several Sutton Coldfield players. With the shouts of “Cross the ball Trey! Cross it” echoing around Braemar Road, Trey chose to ignore my advice, instead opting to lob the keeper from the tightest of angles. What do I know about scoring goals?! Clearly very little! With a 2-0 lead, The Ton continued to live life on the edge, allowing Sutton to attack at will. After failing to clear the ball on a number of occasions, The Ton were finally punished when Sutton pulled a goal back. Crossing from the right, Sutton got the ball into the box, only for The Ton to forget the art of defending, allowing the ball to bounce in the box right in the path of the onrushing Sutton player. It could have been worse though, only for the heroics of keep Alex. Sutton had a free kick on the edge of our area and whipped in a devilish shot. A certain goal. Only it would have been, had we not had Alex between the sticks. Tipping it onto the bar (I still don’t know how!), Alex kept the score 2-1 to The Ton and ensured we made it nine points from nine.

In an ideal world I would love to win every game playing amazing football. However, I’m a realist and I know that is just not possible. Like I said earlier, three points are three points. It doesn’t matter how you get them. Sutton have reason to feel hard done by and deserved at least a point, if not all three. However, football is a funny old game!

More importantly, we have now won our last three games against teams who were all above us at the start of the morning!

Team: Alex; Sam, William, Jayden, Sahib; Michael, Josh; Trey, Ellis Jay, Callum; Karter Subs: Josh F, Ethan, Bailey, Darrelle

M.O.M – Alex

Up the Ton!