⚽️ Lewis
⚽️ Capp
🅰️🅰️ Huang

CSKA were back league action after their cup dreams ended last week and made the short trip down the A6 to a sunny School Lane for the clash against 5th place Birstall Social.

Chris McCafferty was back in the dugout for CSKA, whilst several players returned to the squad having been ineligible for the Arthur Moore Cup Semi Final.

McCafferty rotated the starting XI to accommodate for the players who missed out last week, with Will McNamee, Josh McDougall, Roger Huang, Matt Danes, Raj Bhanji and James Lewis all named in the XI. New signing Theo Grant was on the bench.

Josh McDougall was lively right from the start attacking the right flank with real purpose and getting some good deliveries in. On the other flank, Roger Huang was once again showing us great energy and skill to give his man constant problems, but Birstall defended solidly and were quick to crowd us out any time we got the ball into the box.

Birstall had a brief spell of dominance and a goal line clearance buy their own player was followed shortly after with a shot that clipped the outside of the post on the way past. Some questionable challenges were left unpunished by the referee who showed no interest in getting any cards out for this game, much to the frustration of McCafferty and some of the players.

CSKA survived and regained control of the game. The central midfileders were having a lot of joy on the ball with Matt Danes in particular having a fine game, and was very unlucky not to score when his headed effort was well saved after a lovely cross from Josh McDougall now playing on the left. Hiran Mistry came closer to opening the scoring when his long range effort dipped late and smacked off the crossbar. But the breakthrough came when Will McNamee released a perfectly weighted ball to Roger Huang who beat his man before laying it off to James Lewis who hit a lovely left footed curler into the top corner to make it 1-0.  

CSKA regrouped at half-time keen to have a good solid start and not concede cheaply. Dan Danes was back in the defensive line again today and looked fairly comfortable with anything that came his way. Alongside him Raj Bhanji and Connor Williams were strong in their challenges and rarely troubled.

New signing Theo ‘Troy’ Grant came on early in the second half for Williams and within seconds put in a strong double tackle on the Birstall winger, effectively ending his game. When the defence was breached the shots weren’t brilliant, or Tej was alert to sweep up everything, and probably gathered every second half set-piece that was thrown into him.

A sin-bin for James Lewis added some late drama with CSKA having to work to the bones with 10 men, Dave Payne and Ruben Capp were introduced in this period to add more energy and CSKA survived. Caine Ward was introduced for the final 15 minutes to help get us over the line and made some brilliant pressing runs late in the game to force wayward clearances by the Birstall goalkeeper.

Ruben Capp came agonisingly close to his first ever CSKA goal when his effort was tipped just around the post, whilst Matt Danes almost had a speculative effort creep into the top corner but again well saved by the goalkeeper. But the high press paid off in injury time as a rushed clearance from the goalkeeper fell to Ruben Capp who calmly lofted the ball over him and the backtracking defence for his first ever CSKA goal, from some 35 yards out.

Mr Sefton drew proceedings to a close right as the goal went in. A lovely win for CSKA that now guarantees them a top 4 finish in Division One.