UniBond League Division One
Seel Park, Mossley
Saturday, 3rd December 2005, 3.00pm
No joy at Mossley
Gresley Rovers continued their roller coaster season with a lacklustre performance at Seel Park.
Manager Gary Norton described the showing as "dismal" as he struggled to find the words to describe what he'd seen on the pitch. "In terms of our title aspirations we are a million miles away!"
Mossley started the brighter of the two sides on a pitch that could only be described as very heavy and could have capitalised on some hesitant Gresley defending on 5 minutes. Keeper Gavin Saxby and defenders Andy Simpson and Matt Millns could not decide between them who should deal with Adam Morning's free kick. In the end none of them did and were extremely lucky to see the ball go just past the far post.
Jamie Barrett raised the hopes of the visitors on 9 minutes but he put his shot acoss the face of the goal and then minutes later Aaron O'Connor got on the end of a tremendous Mickey Lyons pass but Christian Cooke managed to get a toe to the ball as the Gresley striker looked ready to pounce.
Gresley's defensive frailty was on display again on 15 minutes when Morning easily got the better of Allan Davies before sending in a cross. Millns managed to block the cross but Simpson's attempted clearance went back to Morning and Gary White had to put the ball out for a corner at the far post.
Gresley showed glimpses of the football they can play on 20 minutes and sliced the home defence wide open. A superb move between Lyons and O'Connor allowed David Holmes to fire in a shot that went wide of the near post.
Mossley's took the lead on 24 minutes from a well-worked but poorly defended corner. Morning's flag kick from the left found Melford Knight, one of two players left totally unmarked in the area, who headed home powerfully from close in.
Nine minutes later, the home side doubled their advantage when Anthony Bingham easily evaded the attention of both Gary White and Matt Millns before crossing for an unmarked Chris Downey to slot the ball past the onrushing Saxby.
On 40 minutes Gresley had a chance to halve the deficit when Jamie Barrett collected Allan Davies'
pass but Mossley keeper managed to block the shot with his legs.
The home side had two good chances inside the last few minutes of the first half. The first when Andy Thackeray easily beat Millns and then fed the ball through to Jordan Goodeve but Saxby made a good block and then seconds later a Goodeve free kick beat the Gresley wall only to come back off a post.
Mosley increased their lead on 68 minutes with arguably the best goal of the game. Bingham cleverly chested Chris Cooke's through ball down before turning and shooting into the bottom corner.
Another chance for the home side came a few minutes later when Downey fired wide as they continued to pile on the pressure.
Carl Slater, one of only a few who came out of the game with any credit, grabbed a 74th-minute goal when he hit a spectacular 25-yard effort that beat Bracey all the way.
But it was Mossley who should have increased their tally by several more goals at the end.
Manager's View
"There were not any positives today! It was an absolute dismal performance and it's time that some us looked at ourselves and asked ourselves the question do we want to listen and learn and move forward and challenge for those top places because on that performance you could take your pick from three, four or five players and it's simply just not good enough. It's answered a lot of questions for me today in terms of our aspirations to challenge for the title - on that showing we are a million miles away.
"All the talk before the game was how unlucky we were to get beaten four-one at home in what was a very entertaining game and to be fair we did perform well on the day. But it on days like this that we have to come away from home to guys who are doing well and grind results out and we didn't demonstrate that today. Defensively we were ridiculous today, almost comical. Case in point was the first goal, Mick and I stood in the dugout saying how twenty seconds after we'd conceded a corner there were still two guys completely unmarked in our penalty box. You expect players to pick them up. They tossed the ball in and the guys didn't have to run to create space for themselves and the ball just landed on his head and it could have been one of two eight yards out. I looked at my watch and there were twenty seven twenty eight minutes gone and I thought the first opening phase of the game we'd done reasonably well we'd weathered a little bit of early pressure and we'd adapted ourselves to the pitch and condition somewhat and felt we were getting Aaron and David Holmes into the game and what chances that were created I felt we had the better of them in the opening period before the goal The goal knocked the stuffing out of us. The second goal epitomises our season - we either get done from cheap goals like the first one or done on the break. We've got two supposedly experienced players just flying in at one hundred miles an hour instead of standing the guy up and trying to get bodies back. I'll name names - Gary White and Matt Millns just flying in an trying to win the ball, the player and everything and the guy's just skipped past them like two traffic cones and he's crossed the ball over to a guy totally unmarked in the penalty box again - comical! In fact our under 9's would be disappointed conceding goals of that nature. And you are always fighting an uphill battle then.
"From that stage, all the good football we'd played in the opening twenty five minutes had gone out of the window and to be fair it should have been a lot more to Mossley today. Offensively they are cracking - they are great going forward. We went to a back three to try and get ourselves back into the game but even then there were so many white shirts free in acres of space in our third that it should have been a lot more than it was.
"The frustrating thing for Mick and I, the supporters and everyone connected to the club is that on paper we are a good footballing side and we've demonstrated than on may occasions this year but we do have a soft underbelly and I make that twenty nine goals already this season for a team that had we won today would have gone second if the results had gone our way. To concede twenty-nine at this stage of the season is far too many and we are not going to do anything if we continue to give cheap goals away. Nobody minds if sides pull you apart and rip you to bits - to be fair their third goal was a fantastic strike but even then there are a lot of things in the build up that we could have done to try and prevent it. Their two opening goals and how we conceded them is our achilles at the moment. It's frustrating at the minute because we are not able to train on the pitch or anywhere to work on things - we want to work on things defensively, shape and defending as a whole but we are not able to do that but that's not an excuse. You can't legislate for their first two goals it was just schoolboy defending.
"We took Mickey Lyons off at half time not because he was injured but that he wasn't having the impact he normally does. He was giving the ball away far too cheaply and in these conditions we were looking for someone to take hold of the ball and get us going. Mickey's game is getting us going but his quality of passing wasn't happening for him and to be fair before we decided to make the change he'd taken his shirt off and was expecting to come off anyway. He held his hands up and admitted that it wasn't happening for him today. So we tried to be positive and get Nathan on there because he'd been patient and tuck Jamie Barrett inside. Jamie did okay in the second half but didn't have the impact that we wanted. In fairness very few players can come out of there with any credit today. We got to look at ourselves as that display was bordering on the disgraceful from us defensively today. We've got to look at ourselves and if it means fresh faces then yes, okay, we've got to leave someone out. With Lee Soar, Matt Millns and Andy Simpson as centre halves we are looking to players to be experienced, to be talking and to be organising but ultimately they need to be doing their jobs and we are simply not doing it at the minute. If I'm over critical it's because I'm very disappointed and when I've calmed down a little bit and looked at things in the cold light of day I don't think things will be much different. Ultimately, at this stage, we are just not good enough.
"Carl scored a good goal. How he put it in from there because there was hardly any back lift at all and he caught it superbly well and their keeper was a touch out of position. We threatened a fair bit in and around their third but nothing was dropping for us and when we did have our chances particularly in the first half we either delayed things or did not get shots on target or the shots we did get were weak so it was just a consolation today and it probably made the score line look a lot closer than it actually was."
