A home win, a clean sheet, 3 points. I'll take that.
We fielded a back line of Bennett, Baris, Grimwood and ABD infant of the ever reliable Walker in goal.
A midfield of Hammett, Holland and Harrison ( what with Hunter on the bench it appears the prerequisite for a spot in the centre of the park for AFC is to have a surname beginning with H....not sure Jordan Henderson would make the cut mind you )
Maycock and Cassell out wide and supporting Sean Marks up top
If you saw the Soham game then the first half of this match would have felt very familiar. AFC dominating the ball, the defence mopping up effectively leaving Walker with only scraps to deal with. Plenty of the ball in forward areas but again not really working the keeper although working good potential opportunities.
Bennett, Holland and Maycock all shooting over or wide when in decent positions.
Joe Grimwood lasted barely 5 minutes due to receiving a knee in the back in the opening 60 seconds of the game and you know what Joe's like..he's a tough competitor, so when you see him go down and clearly in serious pain then you know it must be hurting. O'Malley came on in his place.
Not much more i can add to that really for the first half.. we huffed, we puffed, we probed, we kept the ball well, we didn't score, we didn't work the keeper.
Also in keeper with the Soham game, the second half saw Brentwood come back into the game. Walker was forced into action to save at full length and to smother a few efforts as well as Brentwood pinging one off the post. It looked for a while that if a goal was going to come then maybe it would be from our visitors although we began to work the Brentwood keeper more ourselves as well. A flicked volley from Cassell was somehow not forced home by Marks at the far post when it looked far easier to score. The ball was being played into dangerous areas now, flying across the face of goal. Shots coming raining in but still not really forcing the Brentwood keeper into desperate action. Harry Critchley came on to replace Cassell with 30 to go and took up a position down the left and with 10 to go Freddie King came on to replace Ben Hammett.. that was the straw that broke the Brentwood back. On 85 minutes, Marks did well keeping the ball alive on the right of the penalty area. He cut the ball back to Freddie who then fed Maycock breaking into the penalty area and he fired home to the relief of everybody.
There were no moments of great alarm after that and we saw the game out fairly comfortably but it definitely went to the wire.
Phew!