Knox City v Chelsea

Knox City 1 Chelsea 0 (Half-time 0-0)

With Diamond Valley’s shock defeat to Stonnington City, Knox City moved level on points with the league leader with a game in hand. They did so after playing a man short for the last twenty minutes after Perazic was red-carded following a multi-player scuffle. In truth, he might consider himself unlucky to be the only player singled out of the only negative passage of an entertaining match in which neither side ever really got on top.

Both defences were generally in charge and clear cut chances were few and far between. It was, however, a competitive match in which the visitors were probable a shade unlucky not to get any points.

Perazic made a couple of timely interceptions, whilst at the other end Matic was as solid as a rock for Chelsea.

David Rajher was the first to try his luck and he had Jorgensen scurrying across his goal in the 7th minute but the shot skidded just wide from 20 metres.

Hinget was creating problems for Chelsea down Knox’s right wing and three times he was unceremoniously brought down whilst at speed.

Muretic was prominent for Chelsea in midfield as the visitors looked good going forward until they reached the last third. There, the danger man, Tudor, was well held by the Knox defence.

In the 40th minute, A great ball from Suat released Moon whose excellent cross was plucked off the head of Grubic by Klarica in the Chelsea goal.

Knox had a good chance in the 49th minute when Grubic dispossessed his defender and raced clear on goal. Even though he was able to get past Klarica he was forced wide and the Chelsea defence recovered to clear the danger.

Chelsea started to gain the ascendancy and knocked the ball around to more effect at this stage, but again they failed to create much in the final third. The Chelsea coach made a couple of changes up forward to try to swing the game but it was the home side which got the vital first goal.

In the 71st minute, they won a throw-in on their left wing. Nick Veljovic’s long throw into the box was deftly flicked on by Edgar and Peter Veljovic stooped in front of his defender to head the ball home.

Four minutes later came the scuffle that saw Knox reduced to ten men. Despite this, they held on to record their fifth straight victory.

Knox City Reserves slumped to its first defeat of the season when they lost 1-0 to Chelsea in the opener. Despite having a number of chances, particularly in the first half, Knox played below par and seldom looked likely to pull this game out of the fire once Chelsea had taken the lead.

Knox City: M. Jorgensen, G. Dos Santos, A. Edgar, D. Perazic (Red card 75th), G. Moon, J. Hingert, N. Giannopoulos (H. Swami – 77th), A. Saunders (P. Veljovic – 61st), N. Veljovic, L. Grubic, K.Suat (M. Hoogendyk – 90th + 4). Sub not used –K. McEvoy.

Chelsea: J. Klarica, P. Filipovic, S. Matic, I. Klarica, D. Rajher, I. Gelemanovic, T. Muretic (J. Rajher – 85th), T. Grskovic, D. Radosevic, K. Alwan (I. Radic – 68th), Z. Tudor (D. Schulberg- 61st). Sub not used: A. Susnja.