| Match Report
The day after Valentines arrived and all the coupled off blokes managed to survive that ordeal, the next question was would the Bilbao be showing any love to the Walton Town boy's. As always expected this would be a close physical game with not many clear cut chances luckily we've got Denny so were always in with a chance of snatching it. so far Walton were winning the battle with 2 wins to one, but who'd win the war.
In preparing for the match Keith opted for a simple 4-4-2 formation and urged us to press the ball hard from the get go and to use our quickly launched through balls to our advantage. In terms of team selection it was fairly straight forward Ross dropped to the bench after struggling with a knee injury and Jonsey started a left back. Oh just to embarrass the gaffer he had an argument with a still ball during the warm up and ended up making Paul Durkins Di Canio fall look graceful... thanks for that boss priceless !!!
From the onset as expected Walton looked very strong and unleashed on us early, they were looking quick and fit and knocking the ball around really well getting to the flanks and giving us trouble. But as Bilbao used to do we stuck to our task and tried to work our hardest. Despite this early pressure they didn't really create any real clear cut chances, john had one iffy moment with yes you guessed a high shot but he dealt with it well, in the sense that it didn't go in !!! and there was a bit of a goal line scramble... by the end of the first 25 minutes Walton were well on top and hand nick-named Jonners Hothands... they'd regret this later.
During the second half of the first period we finally started to get our act together and even started to pass the ball a bit while almost getting our strikers through on goal With Denny and Jenks having a chance each and Benny getting on to ball that had broken to the back post unfortunately he put it wide. Paul almost got through again as he ran on to a loose ball on the edge of the box only to be shoved over the second before he hit it, and a yard outside the box, from the resulting free kick Wilf & Mac tied the Bolton offside ploy, before realising Sunday league officials probably wouldn't get it, Denny then sent it way over, this is one area that Ross will always rule. Anyway by the end of the first half we'd done well, worked really hard and got a foothold in the game, and along with the aforementioned chances Walton had created little apart from some long range chances, due to Wilf and Eddy getting to grips with the two strikers well, and Steve dealing with the lanky one's mum apparently!.
During the break Keith seemed pleased and we stayed as we were. The game was far more open as players began to tire, again Walton had most of the possession and caused us more than a few worries, but with the Defence and midfield working their proverbial nuts off Walton just couldn't fashion any clear chances, By now Wilf had tucked up their target man, Kyd was having his game of the season, must have been the extra set of eye brows and Eddy was cleaning up the rest of the problems. Neil was leading the rest of the midfield and were defending as a unit, They'd brought on a new midfielder who was giving us problems with his running but we were tracking him well and doing a good job on their best player in midfield he's their playmaker(Conner I believe) and we did well to disrupt his passes because if he gets going they are like arrows, today though they resembled my shanked golf drives. So the pattern continued with them having most of the possession and us winning it and breaking quickly Denny was unlucky with two one on one's and we were getting some joy with Paul and Andy down their left flank, we were struggling to retain the ball upfront but the chances were coming another chance came as the keeper dropped the ball from a cross and Skippy blazed high and very much over.
This was turning into a really good and tense game Walton had several corners and long throws and ran the ball well, but the Bilbao wall would not break. With the game looking like it was going for a draw which was not much help to either team Paul broke down the right and cut in ready to cross then with his teeth suddenly sticking out and his hair growing into a long 80's geri curl he hit a Ronaldinho cross cum shot that looped over their dodgy keeper and into the far side of the empty net. Did he mean it who cares, He certainly celebrated like he mean't it, with only a couple of minutes remaining we held on to a famous win, and Paul with his first POB goal wrote his name into Bilbao Folklore.
This was a great result for us and put us back into the promotion race, although Poinytz are five clear so it looks like a 3 way fight between today's teams and the dangerous AFC Fenns. It was a vintage Bilbao performance with us working hard as a team and for each other the defence was exceptional well done Kyd Eddy, Wilf and Jonsey and the midfield worked very very hard to deny them space and time, even Denny worked his nuts off, he must be unable to move today !!! If we play like this in our remaining games we'll definitely achieve something this season. Just a bit more presence upfront is needed and we'll be there (should Benny and Jenks swap ???). Well done though guys a great win, we can now hold our heads high in Walton and Kingston for a few weeks... C'MON BILBAOS RED & WHITE ARMY !!!
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