Deres 1 Faversham 3

[Born Again Dere]

Well, we gave it a good go. Luck wasn't ours and a game we could have won we lost. Faversham played a boring zonal 4-4-2 and fair play to them, it worked a treat. All four goals on the night were superbly taken - Faversham's second was the pick for me, though it did come from hesitancy in our defence. An enjoyable game and I'm glad we gave it a go in the second half instead of feeling sorry for ourselves and taking a hiding.

[Jajo]

Only caught the second half and not seen too many matches recently, but thought we played well and Faversham were fortunate to say the least.

[ebfcman]

I thought it was a good game, I think we played some great football in parts and was unlucky to lose walker, the boys battled to the last and showed fire in their bellys, thats all we can ask is they give it a go, I also think we played some good football for the first 45 - 50 mins against boro, its nice to see football being played in the right way. i would like to say both congratulations and unlucky to MR R Radbourne, for getting the boys up for the fight.

[ebfcman]

PS sorry i didnt turn up at 18 30 to take the team talk as you most kindly offered, the problem is the bibs and balls, i have the bibs but didnt have the balls for it

[Doug]

All in all we played pretty well. The score line could have been the other way round and Faversham would have had no complaints if it was. So why did we lose? I think it was down to tactics; we dominated possession playing some neat football but had to come at them as we had a one goal deficit from the first leg. They relied on a tight defence to keep us out and an opportunity to counterattack. There was very little by way of football from Faversham but nobody can deny that their long ball game and excellent finishing was very effective and their hard working defence was almost impossible to penetrate.

Faversham have a strong defence and must have been confident that they could keep us out by putting 9 men behind the ball and play 2 useful strikers up front ready for the long kick and rush style that they have successfully adopted. I think maybe they had also learnt something from their 3-1 league defeat at PVR a few weeks back when they pushed more men forward in an attacking game but left themselves more open at the back.

Faversham are not a footballing side and prefer the long ball rather than a passing style (so why did they sign JP?!!!!!) but you have to give them credit for adopting effective tactics on this occasion and the excellent finishing power of those 2 front men. Scoring 3 goals from a very limited number of chances in the whole match is not a bad return. I also thought that the Faversham defence was excellent and very difficult to break down and try all that we did they quickly closed most of the many openings that we tried to create and it was almost impossible to get a clear shot at goal. What made it worse for us was the fact that an unfortunate tackle on Byron Walker after the whistle had blown for offside put him out for the rest of the game and so we played most of the match missing probably our most effective striker.

As I have already said we played well and never gave up and if only we had converted that early chance then Faversham would have had to change tactics and play a more open game and maybe the result would have been different.