A River Ran Through Them

Round 6 and the heady heights of fourth place welcomed Crimea River after their Friday evening 4-0 demolition of PSV Eindhoven U-21 side.

It took the home side just under 10 minutes to open the scoring, a thunderous drive from captain marvel Marcel Desailly leaving visiting 'keeper Pepe Reina grasping at air as the ball rippled the net.

Form black hole Alan Smith wasted a fantastic opportunity to put the home side 2 up on 10 minutes before Andrey Arshavin rose to meet a Desailly cross and put the home side 2 up.

Recent signing Carl Spegel continued his impressive run in the first team with his second goal in two games following a defence splitting pass from Tomas Rosicky on 31 minutes and Vivién Tchameni wasted a golden chance on 39 minutes as River threatened to run riot in the opening 45 minutes.

River kicked off the second half at the same high-tempo as they had finished the first and soon found themselves 4-0 up as Alan Smith crashed a header home from an Arshavin cross.

Despite having been on the back foot for most of the match Eindhoven came to life as the match drew to a close and took the game to their tiring hosts with Claudio Collauto, Iwan Balkaran and Yang Sheng Nanmeng all finding River custodian Lukasz Fabianski equal to the task.

"Satisfied, quite satisfied," proclaimed a satisfied Crimea River head coach post match, "though to be honest we didn't learn too much today. But the lads had a job to do today, they could have slacked off and taken it easy but they put in a solid, professional performance. At least up unil the last ten minutes or so when they started show boating and presented Eindhoven a few openings."

"Tactically we were maybe a bit naive and quite lucky that Eindhoven lacked the quality to punish us, other sides will probably not let us off as lightly."

"After a performance like that you cannot really single out any individual performance but young Carl put in a shift and a half up front. Two goals and assist in his first three matches suggest that the lad is tip top form and has a bright future ahead. Hopefully he will stick with us for the long haul," concluded the head coach.