Milford Pumas 2-1 Guildford Saints

All the ingredients for a Cup giant killing were there. A struggling Division One team at home to an in form Premier Division side on a ropey old pitch in driving rain and gale force winds... and the Saints duly obliged with a lack lustre performance littered with errors and missed opportunities! To their credit Milford were very good today. They obviously lifted their game and right from the start were the dominant side putting Saints under pressure and breaking quickly exposing big gaps behind our defence. Josh made three outstanding saves before we even got a shot off today and despite the fact that we took the lead through Tommy R we never really looked like ever winning this match. We did have chances but they always seemed to be scrambled or mis-controlled where as Milford continued to break quickly and got off another couple of excellent shots that Josh performed miracles to keep out before the home team eventually did equalise in the fourth minute of added time in the first half.

In the second half Saints were the better team but the conditions were horrific and again any good approach work was generally followed by a misplaced ball or a poor shot. When Milford scored the second you could visibly see the Saints heads going down. Various formation changes were made to try and provide more attacking options but the ball failed to stick up front and by the time the final whistle went the team were out on their feet, freezing cold and very despondent.

In matches like this you need character as well as ability and today it was the character that was missing from our players. The ability is there but we were half hearted for too many periods of this game. The defence clearly forgot the basics and too often were caught square rather than covering for each other while we rarely worked the ball around the park in midfield like we do on our good days and as a result gave away possession too easily. Credit to Milford - they were really up for it and battled extremely well for their win. Lets hope that we can pull ourselves together when we return to league action next Sunday against Leatherhead.

Man of the Match - Josh Betts