On a glorious sunny day at Coopers School Willett entertained Wickham Lane Wanderers a fixture that has always a good friendly game.
Willett started the game brightly and although the ball spent most the time in the middle third it was the home side that were attacking and on the front foot. A few chances were created but the opposition goalkeeper made a sharp stop down low to deny our first attack and the away defence stood strong and prevented us from opening the scoring. Willett did take the lead but in quite a bizarre and fortuitous manner as Alex Lengthorn continued his fantastic corner pieces from last week and sent in a lovely cross and after a Wickham Lane defender cleared the ball out to Eren Salih on the edge of the box he sent in a shot that again a defender went to clear, however he smashed the ball at Nick Bird, who closed the clearance down and the ball shot straight off his knee and into the bottom corner leaving the keeper stranded to his line.
Thinking this was the perfect start and hoping to add another goal, it was Wickham that went on the attack and after a slight mix up in the defence the ball fell to their centre forward and he hit a great shot that crashed back off the Willett post and back to safety.
After the Wickham opportunity this sparked us back into life and with some good passing football from the midfield and involving the strikers we created some more half chances and if it wasn't for the offside flag we would have scored from a great forward move involving 6 Willett players. We were not to be denied however and after 25 minutes we went 2 - 0 up as this time from another corner, James Barker sent the ball all the way over and found the unmarked Liam Napper running in from the edge of the box. He hit the ball first time from 8 yards out and scored a good controlled finish.
Into the second half and Willett killed the game off with 20 minutes left as they doubled there advantage to go 4 - 0 up. First of all Mitchell Foley scored the third after some good play down the right from Patrick Bennett as he held the ball up by the corner flag and passed it back to Tom Larkin. His cross found Eren Salih and instead of shooting he rolled the ball across to Mitchell and with his quick feet got the ball out of his body and found the space to shot low into the net giving the goalie no chance.
The fourth was soon to follow as James sent the ball over the top and Patrick ran onto it. His shot was well blocked by the on rushing goalie but unfortunately the ball came back to Dan Norris and he tucked it into the unguarded net to score his second in 2 games.
We had 3 or 4 more clear opportunities that in fairness we should have scored from and Liam was unlucky to see another effort come crashing back off the bar with the goalie well beaten.
With numerous substitutions made and in fairness to Wickham Lane not giving up without a fight they created the last couple of chances in the game as the same striker from the first half again hit the frame of the goal as his shot across George bobbled and took an age before rebounding back of the post for a Willett player to clear. They did get their consolation and the same player took advantage of a slight defence blip to run clear and shoot through George's legs to make the final score 4 - 1.
It was a good performance from Willett and although the score line could have been greater we battled well and looked quite impressive going forward. Player of the match for today is James Barker as he has really impressed in the last couple of weeks especially in the middle of midfield where the extra man gives him more of a free role. He has also been getting more stuck in with his tackling as we already know with his passing ability he can open up any defence in the league.