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Teenage striker Art Leech this evening moved to Spanish Liga VII side kabe1 in a deal worth £10,000.
Speaking after the transfer was completed, Eike said, “Art needs to be playing, and he was too far down the pecking order to be getting match time here. In order to give him any game time at all, we were having to play him on the wing which is not his best position”.
He added, “It was unfair play him out of position or to keep him sitting on the sidelines when he could be playing, so it was an obvious decision and the best for both the player and club to move him on”.
Eike concluded by saying, “Art’s a good lad and I’m sure that given the opportunity he’ll be an excellent signing for his new team, it’s just a shame that it couldn’t be with Brook Street. I can speak for us all by saying, we wish him the very best of luck with his new club and in the future”.
Brook Street’s number 10 for the future, 18 year-old Kari Kienberger completed his move this evening.
Commenting on his new signing, Eike said, “Kari is a classic number 10 and has the potential to be a terrific signing for us””.
He continued, “We didn’t have a natural number ten and that’s a position we’re going to need going forward”.
“While Kari might not feature in the first team initially, he’s certainly one for the future”.
Having already signed Kalle Konkka earlier in the season, Eike’s signing of Kari marks his intention to form a new partnership in the middle of the park that will ultimately drive Brook Street forward in the future.
It’s easy to see which side was happier with the outcome of this afternoon’s match.
“We threw away two points there and that is simply unacceptable”, blasted a furious Eike Alanne at the post-match press event.
“We put ourselves in what should have been a comfortable position where we could have just seen the game out. Instead we threw the game away with sloppy defending and poor levels of concentration”, he continued.
“We switched off for their first, the second was farcical and the ball in from the right for their third should never have made it in from the wing”.
“We’re now only out of the automatic relegation places on goal difference, and if these players harbour any ambitions to keep playing in this Division, they’re going to have to start putting a lot more effort in”, he added.
Henny van Wegen had put Brook Street in front in the ninth minute with Remko de Rijke and Alex Clapperton adding to the lead, in the twenty-fifth and twenty-eighth minutes respectively, before the roof caved in.
Elsewhere, liverbenitez moved onto the same points as Brook Street with an excellent 2-0 away win over Lambo Selecta, goudi city and Ipod shared six goals and Red Star defeated Wasps 4-2.
Remko de Rijke celebrates his equalising goal, just after the break.
The visitors took the lead from the penalty spot in the ninth minute through Leonard Gallacher, after the referee judged that there had been a handball in the area. It looked soft, but Gallacher made no mistake from the spot.
Two minutes later at the other end, Remko de Rijke went down far too easily in the box looking for a penalty, and despite the home fans protests, the referee correctly waved play-on.
Brook Street had Red Star on the back foot by now and next to try his luck was Lewis Espley who, after going on a great solo run, dragged his shot wide of the post with the goal at his mercy.
It wasn’t all one-way traffic though, and with nineteen minutes played, Wolf Graeber hooked a volley in from the right, but Owen Maurice was on hand to tip the ball over the bar.
Six minutes before the break, Red Star’s Antoni Munts almost made it 2-0 but for a last ditch goal-line clearance by Henny van Wegen.
Eike was clearly unhappy with his side’s performance and had obviously conveyed that to the players at half-time, so much so that they pounded the Red Star defence straight from the re-start.
Lewis Espley was giving his marker a torrid time on the right, and from an enforced error Remko de Rijke collected the loose ball and ran on before slamming the ball into the Red Star net.
Brook Street were clearly on the ascendency and should have put the game to bed midway through the half but poor finishing and the inability to take chances came back to haunt them when, somewhat against the run of play with ten minutes to go, Red Star’s Gazi Sanaç tucked the ball into the Brook Street net just beyond the despairing grasp of Owen Maurice.
As Brook Street went in search of the equaliser, Red Star’s defence was again being stretched and the breakthrough came with just six minutes left.
As the home side pressed, the ball broke to Sam Ferretto in the box who used all his experience to conjour up a penalty. With a quick flick he knocked it past the defender but left a leg trailling that there was no way of avoiding. Down went the veteran forward, and László Grofcsik made no mistake from the spot, sending the keeper the wrong way.
“We deserved the point in the end”, claimed Eike afterwards, “but there was a hint of good fortune about it”.
“Again we’re not taking chances when they arise, and that’s why we’re where we are in the league. We must be more clinical”.
“Every game is a Cup Final for us now and we cannot afford any slip-ups”, he added.
In the other games, goudi city opened up an eight point gap over Red Star with a 3-0 win over liverbenitez at Uberstadion, Ipod put four past rse mien without reply while bottom side Wasps did what goudi city failed to do, and defeated Lambo Selecta 3-0 to pick up their first win of the season.
Brook Street’s new signing, 17 year-old winger Alistair Snodgrass
“Alistair is one for the future, and we’re delighted to have him onboard”, said Eike. “We are aware that we have an ageing squad and we have to do something about it. Since the Academy closed, young players like Alistair have to come into the club, and this will now be happening more regularly”.
He continued, “By bringing in teenage players, we can develop them so that they can move into the first team with the minimum of disruption. It’s a conveyor belt, but that’s the way football works nowadays”.
Alistair becomes Brook Street’s third new signing of the season.
Brook Street’s man of the match Owen Maurice pulls off a breathtaking save to deny Martyn Webster his third goal of the game.
The home side were quick to put Athletic under pressure and but for Owen Maurice’s lightning fast reflexes, would have found themselves behind after only ten minutes.
Owen however was powerless to prevent the opener just after the half-hour mark, when Ipod striker Martyn Webster hit a “worldy” from the right side of the box that curled beyond Owen Maurice and into the top corner of the net.
Vassilis Taxiarchou had the opportunity to level four minutes later when Conor Meldrum’s low cross evaded everyone and landed at his feed. With the goal at his mercy, the Greek defender rushed his shot and sent his shot high, wide, and not so handsome.
The game became bogged down in midfield early in the second half, but ten minutes after the restart, Ipod went two-up and it was that man again, Martyn Webster, who slammed the ball home.
Brook Street had no answer, and with Webster looking for his hat-trick, he sent a fantastic opportunity over the bar in sixty-five minutes, then Owen Maurice came to Brook Street’s rescue three minutes later when one-on-one he denied Webster at point blank range.
“Without Owen, that could have got embarrassing”, admitted Eike at his press conference.
He continued, “Once again we lacked a cutting edge up front and that doesn’t help the defence. We have players more than capable of creating chances, but that is exactly what they aren’t doing. We’ve got to sort this or we will find ourselves in trouble”.
Brook Street’s saving grace in that respect was that liverbenitez only managed a 1-1 draw at Red Star. Wasps stay bottom without a win after their 5-3 defeat at rsc mien, but performance of the day for the second week in succession goes to Lambo Selecta who took another point off runaway leaders goudi city with a 1-1 away draw.
With the ball clearly behind him, Ipod keeper Reese Tanner takes Brook Street’s Remko de Rijke out of the game. The result? No penalty!
Brook Street were fast out of the traps, and had a strong claim for a penalty just two minutes in when Remko de Rijke was brought down by Ipod keeper Reese Tanner as he attempted to take the ball round him. The referee waived away the claims of the players, and gave Eike Alanne a ticking-off after the Brook Street coach said something out of turn to the fourth official.
Ipod created a couple of good opportunities in the match but poor finishing saw them squandered, while the Brook Street players worked hard to press their opponents at every opportunity, this paying dividends by nullifying any threats.
So with two evenly matched sides, it was perhaps inevitable that the game would finish in a no-score draw.
“The sides are good at cancelling each other out, so we both knew that whoever made the breakthrough first would probably go one to win the game”, commented Eike after the match.
“Defences were pretty much on top and chances few and far between, so it’s hardly surprising the game ended goal-less”, he added.
He continued, “That said, we should have had a penalty when Remko was brought down by their keeper. It would have been a red card too, so it could have had a huge bearing on the outcome”.
“I still don’t know how the officials came to the decision that it wasn’t a penalty”.
In other matches, Red Star defeated liverbenitez 3-1 at the Uberstadion, Wasps remain adrift at the foot of the table following this afternoon’s 2-6 reversal at The Recs, while Lambo Selecta pulled off the shock of the season so far by taking the first point off of goudi city in a 2-2 home draw.
Remko de Rijke evades every Blue Order challenge to prod the ball into the net putting us 1-0 up.
Brook Street had taken the lead through Remko de Rijke after half an hour and although the Dumfries side went down to nine men through injuries to Artan Azarang and Ignacio Romero, they kept their shape and set out to frustrate Brook Street.
Brook Street had their chances, but failed to take any of them, and paid the price for their profligacy in front of goal when, in the seventieth minute Blue Order, against the odds, levelled when Gabriele Toldo struck after the ball rebounded off the crossbar.
Indeed, things could have got a lot worse in the eighty-third minute but Owen Maurice comfortably saved Gianpiero Fallo’s shot.
And so it went to extra-time.
Blues continued to play keepball and hit on the break, and it eventually paid dividends just after the break when Brook Street’s defence lost concentration for a split second, and Herman Vannitsen bundled the ball into the net off a cross from the right.
Despite their renewed efforts, Brook Street couldn’t find a way from the ranked Brook Street defence.
“We switched off and paid the price, that’s all it came down to”, admitted Eike afterwards.
“The lads were excellent today, but couldn’t break down a side intent on stifling the game”, he added. “My players will have learnt a big lesson today, and will hopefully be able to learn from it”.
He continued, “If I was being particularly harsh, I’d say we were naive today, but that would be totally unfair on the lads who, after all, tied with Blue Order after ninety minutes”.
“We’ve got an awkward game at home to Ipod on Saturday, so now it’s up to us to pick the players up from today’s disappointment and get their heads up for the next challenge.
This is Brook Street 