Grampus Struggle to Bury Bellmare

A comfortable win that should have been won by a far more convincing scoreline. We still need to improve our ability to close out games. There was no need for the tense final ten minutes we had to endure at the end.

First Half

Grampus got off to a promising start and Mu Kanazaki was soon testing the visitors defence with his speed. Kennedy had an early chance, when put through by a long clearance from Abe, but failed to take full advantage. Tamada had already seen one good header fail to find the mark, when Maukawa and Tulio combined to give us a well deserved lead. Danilson sent into a ball into the middle, which Masukawa flicked on for Tulio nod home after 17 minutes. Tamada, Tulio and Magnum all had chances to add to our lead, but could not find the composure to make their chances count. Meanwhile, the visitors were restricted to a the occasional break, but apart from one Sakamoto shot, bid not trouble Narazaki.

Second Half

Our failure to convert our level of possession and control into more goals, saw the visitors increase their belief that they may be able to get something out of the game and Bellmare made this half a bit more of an even contest. However, we again got off to the better start, and Kanazaki and Danilson both had decent efforts early on. Danilson finally gave us the second goal, midway through the half, with an accurate daisy-cutter from 30 meters. 2-0 and it looked like we would coast to a comfortable win that would boost our goal difference. However, shortly after this Stojkovic brought on Ogawa and Burzanovic for Magnum and Kanazaki, and this disrupted our rhythm and allowed the visitors to gain a foothold in a game that was slipping away from them. The spent the final 15 minutes making a valiant effort to get back into the game and sub Tahara gave them hope with 10 minutes to go, firing in from abut 12 yards. However, we managed to keep them at bay and eventually ran out with the win we deserved.

Grampus:

Seigo Narazaki
Hayuma Tanaka, Tulio, Takahiro Masukawa, Shohei Abe
Naoshi Nakamura (Alex Santos HT), Danilson, Magnum (Yoshizumi Ogawa 71’)
Mu Kanazaki (Igor Burzanovic 71’), Josh Kennedy, Keiji Tamada