Barking & Dagenham 5-0 Sutton

BARKING & DAGENHAM SECURED YET another top two finish in the London Girls’ League with a professional performance at Parsloes Park, brushing aside a talented Sutton outfit to maintain their 100% home record and register a tenth win on the trot at the Bobby Moore Hub. Theresa Ezea’s hat-trick gave breathing space, along with Jo Mecvari’s side-foot opener and Aaliyah Felix’s towering header, to put the BAD Girls in pole position at the top of the table.   

Ezea looked in the mood from the start.

In the opening minute, Mecvari showed great feet on the left to slip a slide-rule pass through to the exciting striker who powered past her helpless marker to whistle a well-struck effort wide of the upright.

Pressure

And Ezea was at the heart of the action four minutes later, pressurising a short Sutton goal-kick and charging down a panicked clearance which deflected to Mecvari on the edge of the box.

Calm as ever, the Southwood winger picked her spot and Barking & Dagenham were one up.

Midway through the half, Ezea’s relentlessness brought her a first goal in nine games when she harried and hassled once again, causing chaos in the six-yard box to muscle the keeper off the ball before finding half-a-yard to poke past and over the line for 2-0.

Sutton had looked lively early on, causing Barking & Dagenham problems on the break, but as the half progressed, the hosts increasingly took control.

Abbie Blewitt, Paloma Correia and Felix slickly combined to cut open the visitors before the former tried her luck from twenty yards.

Nuisance

Then, five minutes from the interval, Bella Yorke’s carefully weighted through-ball sent Ezea sprinting clear. The St Peter’s striker skipped past any remaining challenges before bearing down on goal, with the goal at her mercy, somehow finding the fence surrounding the pitch instead of the target from ten yards.

Both Ezea and Felix picked out the keeper when well-placed, so it took until four minutes after half-time before the lead was extended.

Correia was an absolute nuisance throughout, frustrating her opposite number with her dogged determination and defensive fortitude. In possession, she was equally outstanding, foraying forward with abandon to leave a flurry of attempted tackles in her wake.

On one such raid, she was felled twenty yards out, presenting Blewitt with another opportunity to whip a wicked ball into the danger area.

So often in the first half, Barking & Dagenham failed to connect. Not this time though, as skipper Felix powered through the crowd to blast a header goal-bound that was in from the moment she started her run.

Action

Also at the heart of the action was Lily-Mae Fisher, enjoying a rare role on the right and having great fun forcing the away keeper into a string of saves.

In the seventeenth minute, Fisher was particularly unlucky when a stretched glove denied her at the last second – and even more so when she turned another Blewitt corner against the crossbar in spectacular fashion.

The re-introduction of Ezea with ten minutes to go though brought the goals Barking & Dagenham deserved.

With the Sutton defence tiring, and ‘The Threat’ well-rested and sniffing blood, Ezea’s second came with a typical sprint from the half-way line, holding off a sequence of fruitless attempts to rob her of possession before bundling the ball over the line for 4-0.

And finally, with the last kick of the game, the match-ball was secured when Whitney James’s quick thinking saw her cut out a final Sutton counter-attack before finding Mecvari in a central position. A sharp turn and threaded ball forward, and Ezea was picked out by Mecvari for a second time, once again forcing over the line to give the scoreline the authority to match the performance.

Clean-Sheet

At the other end, Grace Attwood-Adams – on her fortieth district appearance – registered an eighteenth clean sheet from twenty-seven games this campaign whilst those in front of her took their goal tally for the season to an impressive eighty-five, with five games left to play.

The win seals at least the runners-up medals for Barking & Dagenham who have six wins from six in this year’s London Girls’ League at an average of a goal scored every ten minutes and a goal conceded every two hours.

Mid-table Havering remain to play next with title-rivals Wokingham due in Dagenham on the final day of the season.

Two victories and the title will be secured.

Barking & Dagenham: Grace Attwood-Adams (The Leys), Paloma Correia (George Carey), Theresa Ezea (St Peter’s), Aaliyah Felix (Goresbrook), Lilly-Mae Fisher (Roding), Lily Imititikua (St Peter’s), Whitney James (Rose Lane), Bella Yorke (Richard Alibon), Abbie Blewitt (Hunters Hall), Jo Mecvari (Southwood), Bella Hines (Northbury)