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July 16, 2007
We have a home friendly against Crystal Palace. We were up 2-0 at some point, playing some very inspired football. We were always first on headers and loos balls, nice to see. Goals came from Marc Bridge-Wilkinson on a penalty (33') and Lee Mansell (69'). They later scored a goal to bring the final score to 2-1 for us. We outshoot them 20 to 9 (9 to 6 on target) and also win possession barely with 52%. The nice thing is the 23% we spent controlling the ball in their end of the field.
Both keepers get ratings of 8 and everybody else get 7's, except the 3 defenders coming from the bench (Burton, Piotto, O'Connor) who get 6's.
Injury News
Jacob Burns could miss the start of the season. He suffered a groing strain in training and is said to be out for two weeks. The season starts in two and a half week. That's a bummer. Burns says he's frustrated that his injury is hampering his settling into his new club. Hopefully this won't set him too far back to other... That's an attitude that I like...
International Round-Up
Ivan Kaviedes looked in good shape in Ecuador's 2-2 draw against Paraguay, getting on the scoresheet in the process.
July 20, 2007
We have a friendly against League Two Oxford, on their pitch. It ends on a 0-0 score. We get many more chances eary, outshooting them 8 to 4 (4 to 1 on target) in the first half, but getting outshot 8 to 10 overall. Not getting a shot in the second half isn't very good. Richie Wellens is named Man of the Match with a rating of 8. He won 7 of 11 tackles and had 6 interceptions.
Since I had to sub out Marc Bridge-Wilkinson in the 17th minute, following a minor injury, thus giving plenty of playing time to Lee Mansell, I get to play 15yo Chris Chapman for the last 20 minutes or so. He does fairly well, getting a rating of 7.
International Round-Up
Ivan Kaviedes played the whole game for Ecuador in the Copa América quarter final, which they won 1-0 over Brazil. He did not play very well, however, getting a rating of 6 for his effort.
Injury News
Marc Bridge-Wilkinson, already behind the others after playing only 17 minutes in our last friendly, suffers strained wrist in training and will miss a week.
FM
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