Challenges and Changes!!!

Hi everyone, 

Hope that you are all enjoying your final week at school before you break up for a few weeks of festiveness! I am soooooo glad that we cancelled the training session last night, it poured with rain didn’t it and would not have made for a very enjoyable training session. 

You will see that I have entitled this message ‘Challenges and Changes’ and I suspect that we will have a few of both in the next few weeks!! Firstly I bring sad news that Dan has broken his wrist and as such will be out of action for at least 3 weeks, certainly for the games against Colyton Redsocks (21/12) and CS Leopards (04/01). I am sure we all wish Dan a speedy recovery and hope that we will see him back in a Central shirt in the New Year!! We are also missing Sam P for this Saturday’s match at Colyton Redsocks, so we will be missing two big match players and will need to shuffle things around a bit. 

Julen has been handed the captain's armband for the next couple of matches. He has shown great commitment and attitude towards training and I am sure you will agree is having a great season. Well done Julen, it is a well earned reward for your commitment towards the team. So the starting team for Saturday will be: 

Goalkeeper – Sam R 
Defence – Will A, Cameron and Alfie R 
Midfield – Joe, Will P, Alfie W and Julen 
Striker – Ryan 
Starting Sub – Oscar 

So, as you will see, John and I think that it is best to bring Alfie W into a midfield position to try and offer a more solid defence formation for this game, whilst encouraging all midfield players to push up when we are in an attacking phase of play. Colyton Redsocks will be a tough test for us, they are having a good season and are just one position above us in the league table. All players will need to be alert and ready for a tough defensive game but to be alert to the counterattack and opportunities to break forward and score. Training this week was going to focus on attacking corners. In the last game against Kentisbeare, Will P delivered again and again perfectly weighted and floated corners which we were unable to convert into goals. It was a shame that training was cancelled but we might look at this if we can briefly before the match on Saturday. If we can meet at 10:00am then for a warm up and match preparation. As we are missing two players we will only have one substitute so really important that you have a big breakfast and fuel up for a tough 60minute work out :-)

 ** Dates for your Diaries ** Whilst I know we are all committed to our training I just wanted to confirm that there will be NO training on Wednesday 25th December or Wednesday 1st January. The next midweek training session will be Wednesday 8th January at 6pm at St Luke's.