An Error Strewn Performance Sees The Town Lose 5-2 Away To Guildford City.
Christmas came early for Guildford City.
Gift-wrapped five goals by five horrendous Farnham errors.
Each one, arguably, more comical than the last.
And the strange thing was, it all started so well.
The return of Tom Smith at left back, and skipper Ashley Lloyd in front of the defence, compensating for the loss of Max Meaton at right back to give the Town what seemed to be a more solid defensive shape than was seen on Saturday.
And Farnham edged the opening 20 minutes, looking the more likely scorers.
But then, on 22 minutes, the first error arrived, when a misunderstanding on the edge of the area between Cavin Atkinson and Dutch debutant ‘keeper Jordi Wilson allowed Guildford striker Jordan Adeyemi to nip between them and open the scoring.
To their credit, the Town responded almost immediately.
Will May down the right, pulling the ball back into the Guildford area for Josh Ogunseye to equalise on the half hour mark.
Ironically, given what was to follow, the Town were on top at this point with both full backs stretching the Guildford defence.
But then it all went really wrong!
On 40 minutes, the Town turned off.
They lost possession sloppily and, with players caught out of position, a massive gap opened up down the Farnham left, allowing Guildford to surge forward and sweep in a cross that was neatly put away by Adeyemi for his second of the night.
Two minutes later, things got worse when ‘keeper Wilson missed his punch to allow Guildford a simple chance for a 3-1 lead.
After three terrible errors, the Town looked to rebuild in the second half.
And they might have done, if Josh Ogunseye had been more composed when put through one on one with the ‘keeper.
Unfortunately, this would be as good as it got for Farnham, and any thought of a comeback faded completely when ‘keeper Wilson scuffed his goal kick straight to a the predatory Adeyemi, who simply ran on and slotted home for his hat-trick after 60 minutes.
Tackles were missed, passes went astray, and it was merely a matter of time before yet another error gave Guildford their fifth.
This time, a disbelieving Adeyemi was allowed to run through unchecked and nutmeg the Town ‘keeper for his fourth of the evening.
And, unbelievably, it could have been even worse!
Having lost the ball just outside the box, Tom Smith made a reckless lunge to retrieve it, bringing down his man in the area and conceding a penalty which, to his credit, the Town ‘keeper Wilson saved well.
After this, the match pretty much ran out of stream.
Farnham made some substitutions to little effect and Guildford did the same to run down the clock.
There was, however, enough time for one final goal.
This time going the way of the Town, with Kyle Henry in the right place to score a consolation goal after 82 minutes, following fine work down the Farnham right by full back Jack Mitchell.
Farnham Town manager Colin Millard was lost for words on the manner of the deafeat.
“I’m actually finding it difficult to put into words my thoughts on this game.
It seems strange to say after conceding five, but I felt we were the better team for considerable periods of that game.
We passed the ball well, we created chances, we were aggressive without the ball. So, everything needed to be successful.
But you just can’t give five goals away in any game and, ultimately, that is what we have done.
In fact, in the ways the goals were conceded, we’d have been better off saying to Guildford “here’s the three points we’re not coming”.
All goals conceded can be analysed down but most fall into one of two categories; either a player/team scores a worldie or there’s an individual mistake somewhere and anyone watching tonight’s game will know that at least three, if not four, of the goals we conceded fall into the ‘individual mistake’ category from ourselves.
So that’s particularly concerning, but what is actually concerning me more is tonight was the fact that it’s our 21st game of the season and we have already used four different goalkeepers. Not out of choice, but out of our lack of commitment.
This level of commitment is widespread within this club and it’s my job to stamp that out for the longer future.
Just to add how proud I was to see our amazing away support tonight.
That’s the first time since I’ve arrived at the club that I could see our “pocket of claret” at an away game.
Although tonight we weren’t successful, with that level of support it’s only a matter of time before our luck changes”.
A night to forget for the Farnham faithful who, once again, turned up in their numbers to support the Town.
They must hope that the team is able to put the result behind them when they entertain Fleet Town on Saturday.
MOTM : Kyle Henry
The Town’s next home match is the Combined Counties league game against Fleet Town on Saturday 20 November. K.O. 3:00pm
Images kindly supplied by Paul Burgman : https://about.me/paul.burgman
