Leiston continued their flying start to 2017 with a confident 4-1 win over Billericay on Saturday, the goals coming from Ollie Brown, Niko Muir and a brace from Matt Blake.
The game did not start the way Leiston would have hoped as Billericay flew out of the blocks and grabbed the lead after just five minutes when Christian Assombalonga was played through on goal and calmly placed his shot past Leiston keeper Jacob Marsden and into the back of the net.
Leiston did not let their heads drop after going a goal down however and put the Billericay defence under a mountain of pressure for most of the remainder of the half.
The second goal of the game came after 17 minutes as Seb Dunbar picked up the ball on the left flank and floated a cross in to the box which was asking to be converted and Matt Blake obliged with an acrobatic overhead kick that the keeper could not get near.
Leiston dominated the remainder of the half and looked especially dangerous in the wide areas of the pitch with wing-backs Ollie Brown and Dunbar causing the Billericay defence constant issues.
Leiston continued to press in the second half and it looked as though they may go behind again when a fast counter attack from Billericay forced a superb save out of Marsden.
From Marsden’s kick Niko Muir picked up the ball, looked up, and rolled a perfectly weighted ball through to Blake who took his shot first time before watching it settle in the net for his second goal of the game, which took his total for the season to 30, putting his team 2-1 up with 20 minutes left to play.
As Billericay pushed for a goal to draw them level again the game began to open up for Leiston and they began to create chance after chance.
After 77 minutes Dunbar put in yet another dangerous cross which was fumbled by the keeper and allowed Niko Muir to tap the ball home and put Leiston out of sight.
The game was wrapped up with two minutes to go when the ball fell to Ollie Brown’s feet in the box and he dropped his shoulder to open up some space and drill his shot past the keepeto make it 4-1.
Billericay had some chances in the final moments but were denied by some more sensational goalkeeping from Marsden which kept the score at 4-1.
Leiston boss Glenn Driver said after the match: “I felt they started the game really quick, but for us with Blakey and Niko up front you’re always going to have an opportunity for goals and I felt once we scored there was only one team that really looked like winning, they had a good chance but Jacob saved in the second half but I thought once we got ourselves in front there was only going to be one winner.
“They’re going to get better and better but I’m over the moon with that result, that’s a massive, massive result for us.”
When asked on how his team responded to going down early, Driver said: “We’ve conceded goals, we were 2 nil down at Tunbridge and we came back at Tunbridge and got a point.
“This team has got an attitude where they say right, when we go behind we are not beaten.
“I’m just pleased as punch for the players because this was a big game with everything that’s happening at Billericay at the moment, but we’ve come out of it smiling this time round but I’m sure when we go to their place it will be a lot harder game.”
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