Destined to be a tough game as 5 met 1 in the table. It was all even with FK on top until the 35th minute and a yellow card for Kareem who came out to tackle their number9 who made the most of it with a trailing leg that Kareem caught. Shuffling for 6 minutes meant the very solid Araya kept the goal, Theo dropped into the back and Benny D dropped into center mid.

It was during the shuffle that they stole the first – with Araya’s parry not held and the certainly off-side number 7 coming in for the rebound. We’d already been denied a nailed on penalty for a hand ball in the box (which infuriated the tremendous Matt P) so it looked like Alex wasn’t in the mood to give us anything.

Solid again till the half, and it wasn’t until 25 minute into the second half that they got their second – we were uncharacteristically hesitant at the back while we moved from two holding to two up top after the graft master Gavin B was yellow carded. Matt and Gavin had been absolutely terrific as Carrick and Scholes, but Gav’s yellow was a Scholesy challenge that any of us would have made – we had nearly everyone in the box looking for the equalizer and Gav was deputizing for Araya and Ousman – they broke he struck

So with 10 minutes left and having had entirely the best of the open play (no finishing today though lads) we threw everything and the kitchen sink at them with Benny D, Nick Esp and Rosario T up top and Gavin covering for Rosario at left back. You might as well lose 3-0 as 2-0, and with everything in attack and with the boys leaving absolutely everything on the pitch that’s what happened.

But this was an astonishing performance, with moments of Arsenal and counter attacks out of the Fergie playbook, Valhalla knew we were the better team and that they’d been very lucky on the night. Boyley, Benny and Nick had all left a couple of chances on the table but made up for that with toil. Any other eam in the league and we play like that and they’re battered.