East Midlands Counties League
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Saturday, 8th January 2011, 3.00pm
Dismal
Gresley's dismal start to the New Year continued with a disappointing defeat at the Moat Ground as they conspired to snatch defeat from the mouth of victory.
Having gone two nil up within the first 15 minutes Gresley looked to be in cruise control but the old defensive frailties surfaced again and a mad two minutes spell saw them dragged back with Greenwood going on to gain a well deserved win.
The Moat Ground faithful had not seen their side suffer a home league defeat since August 2009 in a bizarre game against Holbrook Miners Welfare but there was nothing bizarre about Greenwood's victory.
Things started so well for the homeside with David Blenkinsopp's shot on the run testing keeper Scott Miles with hardly a minute on the game and then taking the lead just two minutes later. A corner from the left by Mickey Lyons found Barry Woolley at the far post and the big defender buried his header into the net.
Gresley were two goals up on 14 minutes. This time a good through ball from Jordi Gough was met by Blenkinsopp who took it in his stride before slipping the ball past Miles and into the far corner.
Gresley's dream start turned into a nightmare on 24 minutes when Alex Haughton somehow managed to get the better of two defenders in the area poking the ball home between their tackles.
If that was not bad enough two minutes later an even more poor display of defending allowed Nathan Robinson the complete freedom to run almost from his own penalty area through to Gresley's without an attempted tackle at any stage. And to make things worse Robinson then lifted the ball over the head of keeper Gary Hateley who had ventured too far forward and into the net.
Gresley were stunned and soon Greenwood began to take control of the game looking the most likely to score again. Hateleyhad to tip a speculative effort over the ball from another lob this time from Eugene Francis.
The first half ended with a cross from Lyons needing just a touch as he fizzed a ball across the box and Royce Turville hitting a good shot agonisingly the wrong side of an upright.
Gresley were unlucky not to have taken an early second half lead when Woolley flicked his header on from the edge of the area to Blenkinsopp whose touch ended up clipping the top of the bar with the keeper beaten.
Another piece of slack defending saw the visitors take the lead. Haughton wide on the left was given time and space to run from the halfway line and into the area before slipping the ball past Hateley and into the far corner.
No-one could deny they deserved their lead and they added to it on 69 minutes when again Gresley's defence went AWOL leaving Haughton again on his own. He then threaded the ball through to substitute Craig Meakin who comfortably tucked away his chance.
Gresley were being pulled apart at the back with Haughton causing all sorts of problems and he almost set up Jordain Blair to add to the homeside's misery but the final shot went wide.
As in the previous match Gresley seemed to come alive when time was almost gone and they did managed to reduce the deficit when substitute Adam Betteridge good run down the left ended with a cross that Blenkinsopp side footed home from close in.
Greenwood wrapped up the scoring in time added on when a miss kick from Jamie Barrett let Meakin in on goal and he gladly took the gift to punish Gresley further with the help of the far post.
Manager's View
"Today's defeat was due to our own short comings. Defensively we were woeful not just the back, I'm not just having a go at them, but us collectively. To concede five and score three is just not acceptable, absolutely not acceptable.
"The other big thing for me was that we'd not been beaten at home in the league for nearly eighteen months in August last season against Holbrook but to lose today in that manner was very, very disappointing.
"We had a good start, two-nil up and for the first twenty, twenty five minutes we looked a good side and it then went downhill from then. We've got experienced players out there who didn't step up to the plate and knit things together, talk or organised. Numerous times in the second half we lost our shape and on the back of seven clean sheets out of eight prior to the break and the lay-off, and all the sides have had the break, it wasn't acceptable.
"For me, the biggest thing was our fitness levels particularly in the second half. The lads have got to take responsibility that if we cannot get venues and training places to train and all sides are in the same position, they've got to keep their fitness levels up.
"Clearly today Greenwood looked a lot fitter than us at the end and it's so disappointing, it really is. I know we've got problems and unavailable players. We had to throw Gareth Langford and Liam Hebberd on and both of them shouldn't even be on the bench. They could only give twenty minutes that's why we left it late to chuck them on to try and change the game. If you look at the players on the pitch you're not telling me that Tom Betteridge and Richard Butler, two of the back four we've been successful with earlier in the season would have made that much difference to us defensively but obviously they do looking at that showing, second half in particular.
"We'll definitely have Tom back for Tuesday and in terms of other players out we'll have to sit down and have a look over the weekend. I don't know whether we've picked any injuries up today I've not really thought about it as I'm gutted about the result and the score line.
"It's devastating that we were really getting some momentum going up to November and now that's three defeats on the trot and it's been a long time since that's happened and we are leaking goals for fun so we've got a lot of hard work to do to tweak things and get back to basics.
"One or two of the senior players in the dressing room have spoken up and said we must look at ourselves collectively and individually. I'm looking at myself, what am I doing wrong, what can I change to impact on things?
"We are not even at the halfway stage so this was not catastrophic but it's not brilliant. We should be really stretching things at the top of the table but with the last two performances Bardon away and Greenwood today and we concede goals like we have been doing it's going to be a very long second half of the season instead of the very exciting one that it was all set up for. So there is lots of work to do.
"You could argue that we need to get some more bodies in but up until last Monday everything was rosy. We had a great squad and people were raving about us and then we had a bad defeat against Bardon and we get a little bit of stick and today to lose your eighteen month unbeaten home record in that manner you'd argue that it does make it more urgent to get bodies in and that may well be the case. We have been trying but the players we've been after are either happy and doing well at the clubs they're at or they are contracted to their current clubs. It may well be that we step that search up and it's certainly something we'll be looking at.
"You could hear some of the supporters grumbling about the substitutions. We kept Mickey Lyons on the pitch to play off the front two because he's creative and although he didn't have the best of games bit with Mickey and Brian Woodall on the pitch it only need one of them to flash their brilliance.
"Towards the end we stuck Barry Woolley up front with a view of maybe going a bit longer but we like to try and play football and unfortunately the last two games we've been a million miles off the standard we've set up until November twentieth and I won't rest until it's sorted out."
