Enfield Town FC

Another pre-season workout, another sobering defeat, writes Andrew Warshaw.

There may have been worrying signs as we were crushed 4-1 by National League Boreham Wood on Tuesday night to record a fourth straight loss but there are still three more warm-up games for Andy Leese and his management team to put things right  before the season proper.

No-one would suggest for one moment that there isn’t considerable work to do but the fact is two of our four opponents to date have been well above our level league-wise while three of them have played a lot more matches to prove their fitness.

On the positive front it was good to see Mo Faal (pictured) lead the line for the second straight game. Mo showed more than a few glimpses of what he used to bring to the team and both made and scored the ninth-minute penalty from which we equalised after Boreham Wood had taken the lead through Kabs Tshimanga.

The Towners, who again lined up with a mix of signed first-teamers and triallists,  had actually started on the front foot with Sam Youngs heading narrowly wide but our chances thereafter were few and far between against a side simply too hot to handle.

Faal’s penalty, sending the keeper the wrong way after being fouled by Dave Stephens, was pretty much all we offered thereafter in the first half.

After our physically stronger visitors struck the post from a freekick, Connor Smith restored their lead, albeit with something of a mishit,  and two minutes later Mafuta was left totally unmarked to double Boreham Wood’s advantage.

halftime 1-3

Just as in previous games, we improved  after the break but were still second best when it came to possession, chances and concentration.

This was perhaps hardly surprising given the opponents were full-time professionals and two divisions higher but we could, perhaps should, have done better.

On 63 minutes  Wood increased their lead further when a Frankie Raymond cross was expertly headed home by Jamal Fyfield.

The only disappointment for the visitors came when  Raymond received a straight red card for a late challenge on Percy Kiangebeni. It seemed, in truth, like revenge after Percy himself got away with  yellow a few minutes earlier for a crunching tackle that prompted a centre-field melee.

A late flurry of substitutes ensued  but that was the end of the scoring. Two of our last three games are against fellow Step 3 teams and one against Step 4 which will give us a better idea of where we stand.

Attendance: 204

Here’s how we lined up:

Enfield Town: McDonald, Urquhart, Chappell, Thomas, Bray, Gyebi, Trialist A, Kiangebeni, Faal, Youngs, Sawaneh