Match Review: Hotspurs FC vs Swiss FC

• GK Martyn U'ren
• DF Aaron Jones
• DF Charlie Moss
• MD Lionel Kong
• MD Ali Roseburgh
• MD Martin Lawrence
• ST Nick Kouvaritakis
• ST Thomas Greene
• -- Guy Turton
• -- Adam McCarthy
• -- Joe Quinn

• MD Joshua Donavan
• -- Jack Munday
• -- Matt Young
• -- Richard Lenton
• -- Stephen Stork

Greene means go in race for top 4

Hotspurs made seriously hard work of dispatching a dogged and determined Swiss side on Saturday. However, the three hard-earned points for Tom Greene’s side keeps alive the prospect of a top four finish – something that seemed about as likely as Hotspurs taking a short throw-in when they were languishing in negative equity after the opening five games of the season. Hotspurs started brightly, and took the lead when a pinpoint diagonal ball from Martin Lawrence was cushioned home at the far post by Guy Turton. Turton, who was so poor in the warm-up that his only use on planet Earth would have been to sell his organs – the ones not ravaged by cheap cider – then struck the bar with a fierce left-footed drive from 30 yards out. The transformation from Messy to Messi was almost complete, yet predictably his renaissance would swiftly dissolve like a snowflake in the sun. On seven minutes Hotspurs doubled their advantage. Adam McCarthy received the ball in the right channel after an excellent team move, and his unselfish cut-back allowed Lionel Kong to bundle the ball home. With Swiss looking dispirited, a Theresa May style landslide loomed. However, Hotspurs eased off, believing that the job was all but done, and somehow allowed the bottom of the table club to get back into the game. Swiss hit the bar before a blatant push by Charlie Moss resulted in a penalty. Joel Terrades stepped up to pull it back to 2-1. The game then hung in the balance until just after half time when a Lawrence corner was cleared to the edge of the box, where Greene took a touch to his left and curled home a picture perfect shot into the top corner of the Swiss net. However, Swiss weren’t done yet, and a second penalty – perhaps harshly awarded against Lawrence for handball – allowed Terrades to bag his second of the afternoon. Despite grabbing a lifeline, Swiss were unable to carve out another chance of note in the remaining 25 minutes, as Hotspurs clung onto the points that saw them climb to fifth in the table.

• Cyrill Binder DF
• Muhammad Fadhil DF
• Thomas Vacher MD
• Hamza Ben Naceur Gharfane MD
• Joel Terrades MD
• Joe Giani --
• Edu Ciffre --
• Heinz Braegger --
• Talant Begaliev --
• Mark Messenger --
• Benjamin Bringuier --

• Ntoudi Mouyelo-Katoula --
• Hashim Heiqal --
• Hassen Kared --

Hotspurs - Swiss

This match could have gone either with both teams having plenty of chances. Hotspurs were probably feeling that it will be a walkover after being 2-0 in 5 mins. Swiss not yet "in the game" and a counter attack and set piece saw us concede 2 early (unnecessary) goals. We recovered somewhat, not only in terms of result, but also performance. We had decent possession and caused the Hotspurs defence plenty of problems (resulting in 2 penalties). We had plenty of other opportunities (posts, one v ones etc) but couldn't convert enough of them. Another game where we could have gotten some points from, but started "one footed" A few more games until season's end, looking forward to ending it with some decent performance (hopefully also some points will come).