Samuel Marchant believes tougher test lie ahead as Maccabi London Lions B boosted their title hopes at Rowley Lane, with hot-shot DEAN ROSENTHAL completing Temple Fortune's misery with a three-minute hat-trick.
The Lions team turned their attention back to their league campaign after getting knocked out of the CA cup last weekend.
On a beautiful pitch made for passing football, Lions took the lead four minutes into the first half through Azouz. He received the ball, letting it roll across him, and then rifled a shot from 25 yards out of the goalkeeper's reach and into the net.
The great start continued with Lions creating a handful of great chances, the highlight being a brilliant ball played through by Azouz to Sammy Kingston, who was unable to put the ball away.
The half went by with Lions on top, and they finished the half brilliantly with a great counter-attacking move that finished with Kingston playing the ball across from the left hand side for Rosenthal to tuck it away.
The MLL came in 2-0 up and were cruising, with Marchant and Nagli praising the first half performance, but just asking for a bit more patience in attack.
The teamtalk seemed to pay off with Lions going 3-0 up two minutes into the second half. A brilliant ball played through by Azouz was finished off clinically by Rosenthal, his second in a few minutes. Rosenthal then completed a three-minute hat-trick to put Lions 4-0 nil up after a defence-splitting pass by Josh Bloom. It could well be the fastest hat-trick scored by a Lions player.
20 minutes later, Bloom then got himself on the scoresheet after a ball was played through to him and with the goalkeeper coming towards him, he dinked it over the keeper with the outside of his right foot. 5-0.
Five soon became six as Jake Hyman, his first game back after a few weeks, found the net after another great ball by Bloom.
And then late on in the game, the two Lions centre backs got on the scoresheet. Brafman with a header from a Sammy Kingston corner, and Landesberg with a cool finish from the edge of the box after the ball fell to him from a corner.
A great performance by Lions with a comprehensive win. All 14 boys contributed today, but the maltesers could only go to one man, Dean Rosenthal with his three-minute hat-trick.
Lions joint-manager Samuel Marchant told JC Sport: “Today we did exactly what needed to be done, which was get back to winning ways. The team reacted perfectly to our loss in the cup last week and there was no better way to do it than with a huge scoreline and a clean sheet.
"The game could’ve and should’ve been out of sight at half time, where we missed three or four clear-cut chances, so we needed to continue the pressure and not fall asleep as it was only 2-0.
"We came out firing, and Dean Rosenthal, who scored with the last kick of the first half, scored two goals in the first two minutes of the second half, to record what might be the fastest ever MGBSFL hat-trick in history in just under two and a half minutes of game time.
"Every week we are improving and Temple Fortune were unfortunate today to be on the receiving end on arguably our best performance of the season.
"We were able to get the ball down and keep possession of the ball which is vital. We will undoubtebly face tougher opposition throughout the season, but no disrespect to Temple Fortune, who came out fighting and made a good effort of it in the first half.
"Next week we face FC Team B in the Peter Morrison and we turn our attention to that now.
"It’s nice to get another victory in the league but we know that next week we will need to up our game even more if we are to compete with a stronger side and progress in the trophy.
"There was however a sour taste left in our mouthes as minutes after recording his hat-trick, Rosenthal left the field having pulled his hamstring, which adds to our injury troubles.
"Benji Weinberger didn’t pass his late fitness test and we now have four key injures to our squad (Mattey, Rosenthal, Nagli, Weinberger). We hope to be back to full strength by mid-november though."
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