FA Cup Preliminary Round
Jackson Ave, Nantwich, Cheshire
Saturday, 27th August 2005, 3.00pm
Woeful!
"Woeful" was the accurate summing up by Gresley manager Gary Norton after seeing his side dumped fairly and squarely out of the FA Cup at the Preliminary stage.
Nantwich Town, who play a level below Gresley showed everything that Norton's side failed to show. They were quicker to the ball, played the better football and had the desire and determination to win the game and thoroughly deserved their emphatic victory.
The game was only four minutes old when Gresley had their first attempt on goal. Awarded a free kick 20 yards out Tony Hemmings elected to take the kick but blasted his shot well over the bar.
Three minutes later another opportunity came Gresley's way but this time David Holmes could only half hit his shot from Chris Gray's pass making the Nantwich keeper Lloyd save an easy one.
Nantwich showed their intent on 8 minutes when Jamie Marrow ran onto a superb through ball that had dissected the Gresley back line but keeper James Pemberton made a fine save denying the goal chance.
On 25 minutes a poor pass from Carl Slater to skipper Andy Simpson allowed Danny Briggs to capitalise and Allan Davies' last-ditch tackle was fortunate to see only a yellow card from referee Mr Sinclair.
The Dabbers were now well in control and it took a deflection that prevented Paul Donnelly from opening the scoring. They continued to pile on the pressure for the rest of the half and Gresley were extremely relieved not to have gone in at the break two or three goals down.
Norton made a change at half time replacing Slater with Mickey Lyons and going 3-5-2 to try and snuff out Nantwich's dominance in the midfield but to no avail as the home side rattled in three goals in 10 dreadful minutes for Gresley.
The second half started with Parry scuffing a clearance that fell to Paul Edwards but his first time shot from long range sailed high over the bar. On 50 minutes a short corner between Gary White and Nicky Carter resulted in Matt Millns heading wide of the post.
Then came the ten-minute spell that is best forgotten from a Gresley point of view. On 52 minutes Matt Blake left Millns bewildered and skipped past him down the right as though he wasn't there. His cross found the arguably the smallest player on the pitch, Briggs totally unattended who gleefully headed the ball past Pemberton.
Two minutes later Gresley had a let off when Marrow's header from Paul Taylor's free kick cannoned back off a posy with Pemberton well beaten. However, they didn't have long to wait for their second goal. On 57 minutes Blake once more easily got behind the Gresley back line to allow him to run in a ball put into the box. Pemberton slid in to collect but the ball ricocheted off the keeper and Blake, quick to his feet, slotted the ball home.
Things got even worse for the visitors five minutes later when again some dreadful defending let Briggs double his tally heading home a Stuart Sheuber cross.
For the last ten minutes Gresley began to get forward in some meaningful way and went close to reducing the deficit on 82 minutes but David Holmes' shot hit the post with the keeper beaten. A minute later, however, Holmes did manage to breech the defence when he volleyed home an Aaron O'Connor cross-box header.
Manager's View
"This was a bad day at the office - woeful. I'm stuck for words to be honest; to be fair Nantwich fully deserved the win from start to finish. I think we were lucky to get away with three it should have been more.
"All the games we put in pre-season individually and as a team we were working hard, working at shape and we played some really good opposition. We've come to Nantwich and they've worked so much harder than us in all aspects of the game. They had quality where we had none. They've dug in and fully deserved it.
"Some of our players that we made decisions on in pre-season haven't come up to those standards yet and there are too many players passing the responsibility and not rolling their sleeves up and doing something about it. I just said to them 'how could you come here and put that sort of performance in what is the most prestigious football competition in the world and look yourselves in the mirror and be happy to take your wages? I feel really sorry for those supporters, the volunteers and helpers who work for Gresley to come here and witness that.
"The last ten minutes we played some half decent football but to be fair they've got the cigars out and took their foot of the gas so it was more that than us improving really. It was woeful from start to finish.
"At the back we were woeful. The midfield was sloppy and gave away too many balls cheaply. The passing was woeful - you can't play at this level of football and give the ball away as we did today and it didn't give us the platform to get any fluidity together.
"Nantwich worked hard and were at us all the time and their midfield smashed us to bits today and that's where the game was won. Even up front things are not sticking and we are not working hard enough - we are not trying to turn average balls in to good balls and we are not prepared to roll our sleeves up.
"What you need first and foremost at this level is commitment, desire and work rate. That's probably the most talented bunch of players we've had in my time at Gresley and we are a loss at why they can go out and put on a performance like that.
"But, we can't look back, we've got to look forward and the Ossett game on Monday will be a big, big game now. And we need to make sure we respond. I want to see the players respond and put a performance that satisfies Mick or I or they will not be here for much longer.
"Nantwich were causing us problems in midfield so we put an extra body in there at half time and went to mark there midfield three but our players did not play to instruction and they still had as much time and space as they'd had in the first half.
"We brought Aaron on although he's still suffering a dead leg and we were hoping he'd not get a bang on it that would have ruled him out for Monday and possibly Friday as well. The changes we made at half time didn't really work out.
"I could take responsibility for that but I'm not going to because if players had done the job they were expected to do then it would have had the desired effect but they didn't!
"Several players were well below par today and there are only a couple of out field players who can come out with any credit - one of them was Allan Davies. He didn't stop all day but be brought him off because he was on a yellow card. Gary White was probably the other one.
"The goals we conceded were very sloppy - absolutely unbelievable. They got past Matt Millns and the smallest guy on the pitch headed home. The second we didn't track them and they got in behind and we exposed James again.
"James was superb again and made two really good saves in the first half to keep us in it. For the third goal people had switched off. What we need to see from our players is heart and pride in the shirt and battling qualities. Unfortunately heads dropped when they got their second goal and were still switched off for their third.
"I said to them at half time that the one positive was that we were nil-nil and not two or three behind because it honestly could have been that.
"Today we didn't look like scoring. Holmesy hit the bar in the eighty-second minute which was the first meaningful attempt.
"We've now got to close ranks and dig in and hopefully use this as a springboard and take what little positives there were from the game and try and put some performances in like we saw in pre-season and build from that. The pressure is mounting now.
"We need to go to Ossett and get at least a point but we won't be settling for that we will be scrapping every step of the way I hope after today's result for three points.
"If players aren't prepared to do that and we don't see that response on Monday then we are not scared to make changes."
