Academy side in four goal win at Cheltenham

Nov 27, 2020 | Academy News, News

Goals from Harvey Greenslade, Owen Brain and a brace from Matt Reed set the Gas youngsters on the way to a 4-0 victory.

Speaking about the result, Lead Professional Development Phase Coach, Tom Parrinello said, “Looking to bounce back from Saturday’s defeat at home to Portsmouth, we travelled up the road to face Cheltenham Town.

“It was a great opportunity for the players to put the heavy defeat on Saturday behind them and move on quickly with a positive result and performance.

“Cheltenham away is always a difficult fixture, on an awkward pitch and physically strong and direct opponents who play a senior style of football.

“In tough conditions, the game was extremely scrappy with few clear cut chances, which is what we had anticipated. We took the lead when Theo Lynden was clipped inside the box, and Harvey Greenslade calmly slotted home to give us the lead going into the half time interval.

“The second half followed a similar pattern and we had to weather spells in direct play and lots of balls in our penalty box which the boys did well.

“We scored to go 2-0, just as momentum was starting to build for the hosts. Zak Ford picking out Matt Reed with an excellent diagonal pass and Reed scored expertly from a tight angle.

“From that point the players were terrific, managing to game well by being good in possession and scored two more goals in quick succession to add gloss to the scoreline. Reed teeing up Owen Brain with a good pull back and a good first time finish. Reed added his second of the game with a clever finish after Greenslade had done some good work down the side.

“Overall it was an excellent performance. Saturday our performance was good in between both boxes but we were desperately poor, especially defensively making poor decisions and conceded some really poor goals by our standards.

“We asked the players just to get back to basics and be consistently good at doing your job and making good decisions and in fairness, to a man, the boys did that. We minimised mistakes that led to goal scoring opportunities for Cheltenham and played percentages well in difficult circumstances.

“We scored some well-worked goals and got better with the ball as the game progressed. There were some pleasing performances individually, Owen Brain and Zak Ford continue to improve game upon each game and there was a good performance from Harvey Greenslade.

“One of the most pleasing aspects of the day was the performances of our midfield pairing of U15 Theo Lynden and U16 Jerry Lawrence, who were outstanding in the middle of the pitch and look really exciting and bright prospects.”

Rovers: Jed Ward, Zak Ford, Sam Heal, James Gorman ©, Adam Biss, Andreas Smolka, Jerry Lawrence, Theo Lynden, Owen Brain Harvey Greenslade, Josh Jenkins

Subs: Matt Reed, Kyrie Pierre