Cray Wanderers 1-0 Crystal Palace - We're looking to bounce back at first attempt, says Keith Bird

CRAY WANDERERS  1-0  CRYSTAL PALACE
Pre-Season Friendly
Tuesday 22^nd July 2014
Stephen McCartney reports from Hayes Lane

CRAY WANDERERS manager Keith Bird says he has a competitive budget so his side can hopefully make an immediate return to the Ryman Premier League.

The Wands hit rock-bottom last season after losing their five-year stay in the division after finishing a miserable campaign with seven wins and five draws from their 46 league games.

The club sacked Ian Jenkins last September, thus ending his 24-year stay at the club, the last fourteen in charge and appointed Bird and his assistant Michael Paye, who were in charge of the reserve side at Conference South landlords Bromley at the time.

The pair couldn’t avoid the inevitable relegation but the slate has been wiped clean and Pat O’Connor’s first half chip ensured Cray Wanderers made it three wins on the bounce to beat the under 18’s at Premier League neighbours Crystal Palace at Hayes Lane tonight.

The Eagles scooped a staggering £73,207,049 after finishing in eleventh-placeon their Premier League return last season – but they will need to fork out for a printing press as four of their substitutes entered the field after the break without shirt numbers on their red and blue striped shirts.

Crystal Palace finished the game with ten-men after referee Ian Bentley took out his red-card from his back pocket to send-off substitute Elliott List for an altercation with Cray Wanderers left-back Jordan Bird.

“Very, very pleased,” said manager Bird, 47, afterwards.

“I thought we were very comfortable to be honest throughout the whole 90 minutes, particularly the second half. There were 15-20 minute spells that Palace had in the first half and second half but other than that I thought we looked pretty comfortable.

“I think they hardly entered our half in the second half and in the first half, again, we had the majority of the possession, so all-in-all it’s a process at this part in pre-season.”

Cray Wanderers opened their pre-season campaign with a 3-1 win over last season’s Ryman League Division One South champions Peacehaven & Telscombe, before beating Tooting & Mitcham United 2-1 on the artificial pitch at Imperial Fields at the weekend.

Bird said: “I think we’re bang on where we’d hope to have liked to have been with three wins, three good performances. I would say two good performances because Tooting & Mitcham was an acceptable performance for us on Saturday but not a great performance but acceptable. We got the job done.

“Three wins out of three, one of them against Palace, albeit a youthful side but they’re still talented players and we’ve got to be happy with that.”

When asked whether tonight’s opponents tested his players, Bird replied: “We’ve played two good sides prior to this in terms of Peacehaven and Tooting & Mitcham so in terms of physicality those were two good tests for us with a new squad and today was a chance to play different opposition who are quick, fast, fit and talented.  They were good on the ball so it was a different kind of test for us so I was quite happy with it.

“I think we’re playing good football. The first thing is not to lose the game. That’s what we’re focusing on this year is not to lose games and then we’ll build from there but we’ve got a certain system of play that we’ve developed in the off-season and we’re executing that very well in the pre-season games that we’ve had so far.”

Cray Wanderers started well and their first chance arrived inside the opening eight minutes following their first corner.

Cesc Fakinos swung in a corner from the left and Steve Springett came up from the back to make a run into the six-yard box but got underneath his header, which looped over the bar from three-yards.

The former Cray Valley defender formed a solid partnership alongside Martin Dynan.

“We’ve got high hopes for Steve,” said the Wands manager.

“He’s a good age. We’ve brought him in from a league below.  Again, like everybody that we’ve signed, a part of our policy for signing players was about talent and also about attitude, commitment, whether they can fit in and Steve fits that roll brilliantly.  He trains well, he trains very hard and he’s going to be a great player for the future.”

Speaking about Dynan, Bird added: “He was at Fulham as a youngster. He was at Walton Casuals last year for a bit. 

“I actually know his brother Lee, who is the assistant manager at (Conference South side) Farnborough.

“Lee and I hold a good relationship.  Lee helped me a lot last year when I first came into Cray in terms of recommending players to me and bouncing some ideas of him and Lee highlighted to me that Martin was available and we’re delighted to bring him in.

“He’s an accomplished centre-back, again, great attitude, a great guy to work with and does a really solid job there.”

Fakinos played the ball up to Alex Stavrinou, who stroked a speculative left-footed drive curling high and wide of the far post from 25-yards.

Crystal Palace created their first opening after fifteen minutes when trickery from winger Aaron Bissaka set up a chance for striker Corie Andrews, but the sixteen-year-old lofted his shot over the bar from 22-yards.

Stavrinou - the home side’s captain and the only player that remains after starting last season under Jenkins - played the ball into Pat O’Connor, who was given time and space to stroke his right-footed drive towards the bottom left-hand corner from 22-yards, but visiting keeper Bradley Comins made the first of his three fine saves, diving low to his right to tip the shot around the post.

Fakinos swung in the resulting corner from the left and this time Dynan glanced his free-header sailing past the far post.

The impressive Ishmeal Welsh, 26, was lively down both flanks and he played the ball in from the right into Tom O’Connor, whose left-footed drive from 25-yards dipped narrowly over the crossbar.

But Cray Wanderers deservedly won the game in the 25^th minute.

Fakinos played the ball into Welsh, who released Fakinos down the right and his driven cross found Tom O’Connor inside the Palace box.

His chipped pass played in his nephew Pat O’Connor who clipped a sublime right-footed chip sailing high over Comins’ right shoulder into the net.

“I knew Ishmael because I worked with him a little bit when I was at Bromley,” said Bird.

“He’s not just a great player, he’s a really nice guy and he’s got a good attitude and is very professional in the way that he looks after himself. He trains well. He’s a good example to some of the younger players. He’s a talented individual so he’s got everything that we’re looking for in players.”

Reflecting on the winning goal, Bird added: “Pat’s a great guy as well. He was at Millwall. He had a short spell at the Metropolitan Police. He had to stop playing due to injury and he’s just coming back again.

“He plays that holding role with Danny Lye and some other options that we’ve got in there as well.

“Getting a goal today, which is something else in the locker as well, so I think Pat’s fitted in incredibly well with the squad and just doesn’t break the play up, he can create things and he’s shown tonight that he can score as well.”

A penetrating run from Andrews helped set up a chance for Andre Coker, who looped his chip over the bar when he only had goalkeeper Darren Behcet to beat.

Comins, 17, made his second save of the night to deny former Hythe Town target-man Shaun Welford.

Welsh went on a run and played the ball inside to midfielder Tom O’Connor who played the ball inside to Welford, who swept his left-footed drive towards goal from 20-yard and Comins flew to his right to tip the ball around the post.

Bird admitted: “I think we’ve still to get the best out of Shaun. I don’t think we’re giving Shaun the service that a player of his quality deserves and that’s the next area of improvement for us in the process.”

Fine play from Welsh again, shrugging off the attentions of his marker in the middle, resulted in former Bromley Academy skipper Tom O’Connor turning to crack a right-footed drive towards goal which Comins did well to tip over.

Bird added: “I thought their keeper done very well in the first half.  I think all three of those were great shots on goal. He pulled off three tremendous saves.”

Crystal Palace created a couple of late chances before half-time.

Coker beat the home side’s offside flag and stabbed the ball past the advancing Behcet but the ball rolled across goal and Alex Gaggin couldn’t steer the ball in as he made a late run into the area.

Andrews, 16, then skimmed the top of the crossbar with his right-footed shot from 12-yards after he was involved with a move including Will Hoare and Coker.

Bird made just one change during the half-time interval as Fakinos was replaced at right-back by Carlos Talbot.

Bird went on to make a further four changes during the interval, leaving four other players on the bench.

Bird explained: “The first game we only used five subs. We wanted to get a feeling first of things.

“On Saturday against Tooting & Mitcham we played two completely different sides in each half and tonight we wanted to go back to having more of a settled side for most of the 90 minutes and giving a few players a run out at the end.

“Beckenham on Saturday gives us a chance to give a run out to some of those that didn’t play tonight.”

Crystal Palace called Behcet into making a comfortable save in the 52^nd minute to deny substitute Michael Phillips scoring with a right-footed drive from outside the box following a corner from the right.

Behcet made a smart save at the foot of his near post to prevent List from scoring from eight-yards on the hour mark.

Bird said: “No disrespect to them. I think a couple of chances that they had we’re quite comfortably taken to be honest. I don’t really think, without any disrespect to Palace, they never really looked like scoring, where as we looked like we could possibly score another three or four.”

Cray Wanderers squandered an excellent chance to double their lead when left-back Bird sent his left-footed free-kick sailing harmlessly over the crossbar from 25-yards.

The manager said: “He’s actually normally very good on set-pieces, so he’ll have to work on that that a bit more on Thursday night!”

Cray Wanderers substitute goalkeeper Nick Taylor was called into action in the final thirteen minutes when he saved low to his left to deny List.

However, an uninspiring second half finished with Cray Wanderers substitute Andre Marquez drilling a shot from distance into the hands of substitute goalkeeper Oliver Pain.

Crystal Palace were reduced to ten-men two minutes into stoppage time when Jordan Bird fell to the ground after List allegedly raised his hands up to the left-back’s face.

The manager claimed: “I was right over the other side of the pitch actually. The guy had a flaying arm and he connected with Jordan and from what I understood – although I didn’t see it personally – I don’t think the ref had a lot of options really.  Unfortunately he’s connected with Jordan in the face and I don’t think the referee can go anywhere from there.

“It was towards the end of a game, in a friendly.  Unfortunately Tooting & Mitcham got a player sent-off and I went over to their manager and I was about to offer him to substitute the player but unfortunately the ref sent him off. 

“I made him the offer and I would’ve liked to have done the same thing tonight.  I think it would be nice particularly as Palace were playing some youngsters in there. It would’ve been nice for them to finish with 11 men and let them substitute the player in a pre-season friendly but it didn’t really make any difference with less than three minutes left in the game.”

Whilst most managers admit results in pre-season are not important, it is for a manager of a club that suffered 34 league defeats last season.

“The priority is clearly testing things and trying things out and learning and that’s the priority, but winning is important,” said Bird.

“We want to instil a winning mentality early. We’re obviously looking to bounce back at our first attempt back in the Premier Division, hopefully this season and we’ll see if we can accomplish that.

“I think getting a winning mentality and getting used to winning and getting used to finishing games off because last season we struggled with that.

“What we’ve proven in the last three games is that we’ve learnt how to win games and that’s really, really important.”

The club struggled financially last season and Bird was asked about his budget for the season ahead.

He said: “They’ll be a number of clubs with bigger budgets than us. I think the difference this year is that we’ve got a budget to compete at this level where as last year unfortunately the budget we had wasn’t competitive for that division.”

Cray Wanderers:  Darren Behcet (Nick Taylor 66), Cesc Fakinos (Carlos Talbot 46), Jordan Bird, Danny Lye, Martin Dynan (Dmitri Larin 83), Steve Springett, Tom O’Connor, Pat O’Connor, Shaun Welford (Adrian Stone 66), Alex Stavrinou (Andre Marquez 66), Ishmael Welsh.
Subs: Isa Hussein, Gary Beckett, Joshua Silvera, Louis Sprosen

Goal: Pat O’Connor 25

Crystal Palace: Bradley Comins (Oliver Pain 46), Ryan King-Elliott (Dan Hogan 46), Jason Akiotu (Jeremiah 46), Will Hoare (Michael Phillips 46), Oliver O’Dwyer (Jahmal Howlett-Mundle 46), Ben Winter (Tom Day 46), Andre Coker, Kiye Martin (Shawnnikki Clement-Peter 46), Corie Andrews (Ibby Akanbi 46), Alex Gaggin (Oliver Bennett 46), Aaron Bissaka (Elliott List 46).

Sent-off: Elliott List 90

Attendance: 519
Referee: Mr Ian Bentley (West Wickham)
Assistants: Mr Piotr Zachwieja (Orpington) & Mr Freddie Collins (Beckenham)