Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Missed chances prove costly
Ben Smith described Cray as the best team City have faced this season – but still felt his side should have taken something from Saturday’s game at Eltham.
City failed to capitalise on several big chances before the break, and were made to pay as Valley struck twice in the closing 23 minutes to claim a 2-0 win.
Their clincher came five minutes from time, as City chased an equaliser and boss Smith said he could not really be too hard on his players afterwards.
He said: “The game sums up our season, we’ve not played badly at all, in fact we probably played better than we have in some games we’ve won, but we haven’t put the ball in the back of the net.
“You’ve got to take your chances when you’re on top and we didn’t but I can’t fault the players because some of the build-up play which created the opportunities was excellent.
“I think Cray are the best side we’ve played this season, they’re a side that will likely go up and we’ve gone toe-to-toe with them.
“It shows that on our day we’re a match for anyone, the challenge for me as manager is to make sure we have those ‘days’ on a more consistent basis.”
City started brightly with Bola Dawodu forcing home keeper Andy Walker to make a smart save low to his right before the best chance of the first half came on 32 minutes.
City frontmen Dawodu and Dean Grant exchanged passes before Dawodu slid the ball in for Renford Tenyue to run on to. Advancing towards goal, the move probably deserved a goal, but Tenyue dragged his left-foot shot across Walker and wide of the target.
Cray then issued City with a warning when after a brief period of pressure, Edwards’ ball towards the far post flicked off Grant’s head and Brad Potter’s header back across goal couldn’t find anyone in a green shirt.
Right on the stroke of halftime City had a glorious chance to open the scoring when Lightfoot’s corner was met by Laurence Harvey whose powerful header flew narrowly wide. City created more pressure at the start of the second half but around the hour mark the home side began to take control and they made the breakthrough on 67 minutes.
Ryan Flack’s corner was headed against the bar by Kevin Lisbie and when the ball dropped, Cem Tumkaya was the first to react and he rifled the ball home through a group of defenders congregating on or close to the goal line.
City had a chance five minutes later when Dawodu appeared to get in front of Walker as he ran across the keeper to meet Lightfoot’s corner but failed to get a touch and the keeper held on well.
In pressing for an equaliser City were always going to be at risk on the counter and Harvey did extremely well to nick the ball from Lisbie after he had seemed sure to at least have a shot on goal from Flack’s through ball.
The killer second goal came with five minutes remaining and there was little anyone could do though to stop it as Chris Edwards cut inside from the right before hitting an unstoppable shot high into the top corner.
Smith added: “The players were disappointed afterwards but I couldn’t go in screaming and shouting because if we continue to play like that in the weeks ahead we’ll definitely win more games than we lose.”
City, 12th in the Southern Counties East League, are away to Croydon on Saturday and Smith is likely to make changes ahead of the FA Vase fifth round tie with Leicester Nirvana on Saturday, February 2.