Eastleigh 4-0 Gosport Borough

EASTLEIGH v GOSPORT BOROUGH
SATURDAY 28th JULY 2007

Pre-Season Friendly

Eastleigh's highly impressive pre-season, continued with an emphatic 4-0 victory against Alex Pike's Gosport Borough this afternoon. This coming on the back of decent displays against higher league opposition, Portsmouth, Southampton and Oxford United.

Despite the result and the performance, there was a negative to come early in the second half amid all of the positives from David Hughes' side.

James Pullen, was back in goal following the injury he sustained just short of two weeks ago against Portsmouth, also coming back into the side were Warren Ryan at left back, and the outstanding Rob Marshall on the opposite side of the back four.

The players to miss out from the previous starting line up, against Oxford United, were Ian Oliver and Phil Cousins, who dropped to the bench, meanwhile Wayne Shaw found himself a place between the sticks for Borough to help them out of a goalkeeping crisis.

After misery in the Russell Cotes Cup in consecutive seasons against the Boro, Eastleigh looked set to put the record straight and went about it the right way, in the end almost strolling to victory at three quarter pace.

Inside the first five minutes, Eastleigh had already proven their threat in front of goal with Steve Watts coming closest with a header from a determined run and cross from Warren Ryan, the full back.

It took just another few moments before the inevitable happened, with Eastleigh taking the lead in the 9th minute, such was the pressure from the hosts. Ellis Green took a quick, short corner on the right to Marshall who floated an inviting cross to the far post that sat up perfectly for the unmarked JUSTIN BENNETT to tuck away his first goal for the club with a cushion header.

Assisting the opening goal, was purely not enough for Marshall, whose name cannot be praised enough for the magical performance he put in. Finding himself in an advanced position, inside the Gosport penalty area, ROB MARSHALL flung himself at a cross from the right and thumped home goal number two with an acrobatic volley that a Premiership forward would have been more than proud of, let alone a defender! Wayne Shaw was left static as there was no keeping out the finish that made its way to the top corner in the blink of an eye.

It wasn't long before the third came along. An excellent move down the right hand side saw Steve Watts win the flick on for Ellis Green, who got to the byline before sending across to pick out Bennett with the super delivery, scorer of the opening goal, Bennett then nodded the ball down for ANTHONY RIVIERE, Eastleigh's very own Patrick Vieira in the making, capped off the move with the finish it deserved, thumping the ball past Shaw with a first time finish to stretch the advantage to three goals in the 21st minute.

The onslaught on the Gosport goal continued long into the half, the next chance coming when James Wilson bizarrely headed past his own goalkeeper to concede a needless corner kick. Karim El-Salahi very nearly made the most of the opportunity that arose as a result, drilling a low, crisp effort just past the near post from 20 yards.

El-Salahi set up Steve Watts with six minutes remaining in the half, but Watts, the former Fisher forward, provided Shaw a comfortable save from the weak header.

Borough, up until now had not so much as got into the Eastleigh half, let alone looked like scoring, but a long kick up the park from Shaw nearly produced the latter. Ashley Jarvis, former Eastleigh forward who began the 2006/7 season with Eastleigh before moving on due to lack of first team opportunities, latched on to the long ball that bounced awkwardly at the feet of Pullen, at the edge of his area with Jarvis looking to poke the ball past the fit again Eastleigh stopper. 'JP' made the save, having been a spectator for the previous 40 minutes!

Magical Marshall, as he was fast becoming, went on another venture up the field from his right back position, bursting into the area like a natural winger, nipping through the middle of two defenders to get to the byline before playing the perfect ball right across the face of goal. All it needed was a touch, but the nearest player, Steve Watts just couldn't quite get on the end of it to do Marshall's attack justice.

Eastleigh ended the half on the up, very nearly adding to their comfortable lead. Ryan played a 40 yard cross field pass for Scannell, operating on the right flank temporarily, who got the ball on to his favoured left foot before watching his cheeky chip sail narrowly over the cross bar.

HALF TIME: Eastleigh 3-0 Gosport Borough

Following on from a thorough, first half performance, that delivered the promise of goals, again the Spitfires took charge coming out of the blocks at super speed.

Steve Watts gave the Gosport defenders no time to settle, twisting this way and that with excellent footwork, before getting his shot away to win a corner, from which, came so close to a goal it was almost unreal.

Flying in to the middle with a perfectly timed run, El-Salahi left his markers for dead to execute a diving header six yards from goal. The ball however, ended up just an inch wide of the upright, from what seemed to be a certain goal.

Kevin Gill then saw his looping header from a perfect Danny Thompson delivery, sail comfortably wide of Pullen's near post.

From what was a pretty much flawless account of themselves, thus far from the Spitfires, the next incident somewhat marred this turning a head on the encounter in a instance.

Without, seeing exactly what happened, it would appear that Karim El-Salahi raised his arm to Kevin Gill, with what force is uncertain and irrelevant for that matter. After what seemed an age, the referee Dean Martin, surrounded by four or five Eastleigh shirts, brandished a red card to El-Salahi.

The turn of events, no doubt will scupper the centre backs start to the season with suspension, which really could be done without. There is always the question, that in friendlies maybe the referee could just ask for a player to be substituted as opposed to producing a card. On the flip side, if the recklessness was avoided in the first place there would be no need for this debate.

Ellis Green was sacrificed as Andy Puckett was introduced to turn the now back three into a complete unit once more.

Being a man down, did not appear in any way to dampen Eastleigh's chances of holding the upper hand, Justin Bennett's half volley crashing against the post just minutes later, demonstrating this.

Just after the hour mark, Steve Watts and Justin Bennett combined perfectly with the formers superb weighted pass to split the Gosport defence, and Bennett's sharp run to beat the offside trap, was met by an equally composed finish for his second, and Eastleigh's fourth of the game, slotting coolly under the advancing Shaw.

Following a second substitution for the home side, Scannell making way for Darren Wheeler, it was very nearly 5-0 thanks to excellent work down the left from Ryan. Danny Smith blasted a volley goalwards to produce a top-drawer save out of Shaw, showing the reactions of a cat to palm the ball away from danger.

A further two substitutions from David Hughes' side, saw Phil Cousins and TJ McClory-Cuthbertson, (probably the longest name in non-league football!), the former Portsmouth youngsters replacing Smith and Riviere in the midfield.

Fifteen minutes from time, Gosport produced their best move of the match with a cross from Gavin Jones met by a bicycle kick from Gill that perhaps deserved better than the outcome of falling wide of the target.

This proved to a momentary attack from the visitors, as, just like before, Eastleigh came back strong with a further three chances in the last ten minutes.

Straight from a Pullen drop-kick, turning defence into attack route one style, the ball went all the way through to Watts bouncing just once before the Eastleigh striker headed wide.

Next, the two latest substitutes linking up well, Phil Cousins showed some of his pedigree winning the ball high up the park before squaring for McClory-Cuthbertson. Taking one touch to get the ball out of his feet, the young winger operating on the right side of midfield, hit a powerful clean strike, which was heading for the top corner. Shaw was on his guard to get across well and kept the effort out.

Ending the match in true style, Darren Wheeler broke from the middle at lightning speed to squeeze past a defender before hooking to his right to find Watts, who had done everything but score a goal this afternoon, Watts got the ball on to his weaker left foot before thumping the ball very unluckily, against the cross bar.

FULL TIME: Eastleigh 4-0 Gosport Borough

JAMIE MONTIGUE