Match Review: Hotspurs FC vs TGA Rangers FC

• GK Martyn U'ren
• DF Tom Hine
• DF James Keane
• MD Ali Roseburgh
• MD Martin Lawrence
• MD Lionel Kong
• ST Nick Kouvaritakis
• ST Thomas Greene
• -- Duncan Elias
• -- Tom Gamby
• -- Mark Hadlow

• MD Joshua Donavan
• -- Joe Quinn
• -- Justin Schoeltens
• -- Gordon Waters
• -- Dmitry Pismenny

A Hot 3 Points

After last week's game against the Swiss was called off due to poor weather, Hotspurs were eager to get back out onto the pitch on Saturday. It's always a tough test against Rangers, and so it was really pleasing to go 1-0 up in the first half- a pinpoint ball in from the left by Greene deftly converted at the near post by Lionel. The afternoon seemed to just get hotter and hotter from there, with both teams struggling to retain the ball and make many inroads in their opponents halves of the pitch. Rangers pressed well in the second half though, and it took a late breakaway goal from Hotspurs' man of the match Lionel to seal the 3 points for HFC, after Schoeltens had seen his left-footed shot saved smartly by the Rangers keeper. Certainly a solid start to 2018 for Hotspurs, and they'll be hoping to keep the momentum going under the floodlights on Friday night against Vikings.

• Dan Ousby DF
• Jordan Laing DF
• Fraser Anderson DF
• Hiromitsu Nakaue DF
• Taishi Fukuda DF
• Chris Jones DF
• Sam Barrett MD
• Nathan Bryer MD
• Paddy Sutton MD
• Sascha Joao Van Der Zijden --
• Rob Whitworth --

• Kevin Slack DF
• Beeching Gregg --

Rangers rocked up to this fixture full of confidence and looking to show new management that their absence would not affect on pitch performances. Sadly it was not be. Dan suffered an early injury forcing us to call on the bench in the first 10 mins. With temperatures rivalling those on rod laver in the last few weeks, playing 90 mins with 12 men was always going to be tough. Hotspurs went in front early on with a well crafted goal that found our hastily reorganised defence wanting. The remainder of the game was played out with Rangers struggling to find much incisive play and the oppo happy to sit back, absorb and catch us on the counter. Drinks breaks came and went and despite lots of effort the final ball was too often lacking and a match low on quality was drawing to a close. Big kev came on for a final assault and despite dominating a few headers couldn't drag rangers out of their slumber. Hotspurs scored a break away goal in the last 5 mins to secure a solid win against a strangely lacklustre Rangers performance. We dust ourselves down and go again against Nippon this saturday looking for an vastly improved performance.