Saturday’s FA Vase game between Ilford and Benfleet at Cricklefield saw the home side triumph on penalties following a cagey 1-1 draw in normal time, a result Ilford Manager Adam Peek found to offer both pros and cons for his side “I would have liked to have won it in normal time, as I see it as a draw. I am quite old fashioned like that but we went through and that is a positive.”
Hero of the hour
Peek’s side triumphed 4-3 on penalties it what Peek describes as a “lottery”, with 17-year-old keeper Josh Blackburn the hero of the moment for The Foxes, and his penalty heroics didn’t go amiss with Peek. “It’s luck on the day, does the keeper go the right way, fortunately for us Josh [Blackburn] saved two.
“In the end it’s never a good way to go out, when you’re on the winning end you’re happy, on the losing side you feel bad but listen, we went through and that’s the main thing.”
Recent Struggles
Ilford struggled to find a foot in the game for the first half, as their abysmal recent run of form looked set to sneak up on them once more, as their visitors found the net within the opening 25 minutes. Peek felt his side were slow off the mark. “it took us too long to get into the game but I thought after about 35 minutes we started to get our foot on the ball and get it to the front men where we have pace to create”.
More joy for The Foxes
The second half seemed to see a different Ilford side to the one that had played the previous 45 minutes, as the hosts looked to get their foot back into the tie. The Foxes did just that after just seven minutes of the second half, as Peek’s half-time talked seemed to have brought out the best in his side. “I said to the boys at half time that the way we get in is down the outside. They played a diamond system which meant we had the opportunities to overlap, so we exploited that rather than play the ball down the two centre halves’ throat. We looked to move it through the midfield and hit the frontmen’s feet and we seemed to get a bit more joy”.
Next Up
With a struggling run of form in recent times for The Foxes, Peek was pleased to see his side progress in the Vase, but his thoughts where already towards the next game “Hopefully this will give us some confidence going into the league but it’s not getting any easier on Wednesday because we play Cockfosters who are top and haven’t lost a game, so we will have to be better on Wednesday then we were today.”
