Midland Football Alliance
Beech Grove, Ellesmere
Saturday, 1st October 2011, 3.00pm
Gresley Suffer On-The-Road Blues
You have to have sympathy for the forty or so hardy souls who made the long journey to Shropshire and then had to witness arguably the worst performance of the season from a Gresley side.
Although the side was missing several first team players there should have been enough quality to have at least give the home side a fight for the points but on a concrete hard pitch and in unseasonal sweltering conditions sadly that was not the case as Rangers out fought, out played and in the end had a comfortable victory over their lacklustre opposition.
The game had hardly started before Gresley found themselves a goal down when Kevin Renshaw on the left flank latched onto the end of a long ball and smashed it across Darren Keeling and into the far bottom corner of the net.
However, seconds before that Gresley almost took the lead when a deep clearance from Carl Slater found Royce Turville who seeing the home keeper Andrew Pryce in no-man's land tried to steer his effort into the empty goal but sadly the ball went wide of the upright.
Gresley were almost punished on 15 minutes when some slack marking allowed Dan Griffiths the space and time to collect Dale Williams' cross from the right but embarrassingly Griffiths put the ball wide of the far post.
Rangers were having the better of the half and on 39 minutes their endeavours were rewarded with a second goal. Substitute Anwar Alugbon on for Jamie Williams made a good run down the right side, cut in and hit a tremendous shot that cannoned off the near post. With Gresley still reeling from the near miss, Tom Ward chased down the loose ball and from the left sent a cross into the area which Andy Ford put past Keeling with a glancing header.
With the first half almost at an end Rangers could have added a further goal but this time Keeling pushed Chris Cathrall's powerful shot away for a corner.
The game was as good as over within five minutes of the start of the second half and it came in somewhat unfortunate circumstances. A nothing of a high cross from Ward from the left seemed to have been comfortably dealt with by Keeling who then proceeded to fumble the cross and the ball fell over his head and into the net behind him which, to be honest, summed up the disappointing afternoon.
To their credit Gresley did spark into life very slightly with the hardworking Royce Turville getting the better of his marker before hitting a shot that Pryce pushed away with the only save he had to make of any note all afternoon.
A rare half chance came on 56 minutes when Dean Oliver headed Marc Goodfellow's cross from the left marginally over the bar.
Gresley's defending was left wanting again on 67 minutes as Ward was left once more to plant a free header from Griffiths' free kick straight into the arms of Keeling.
The game fizzled out in the afternoon heat but Gresley had a couple of chances to reduce the arrears late on when Rob Spencer headed Barrow's cross over and then when he hit a shot straight at the Rangers' keeper.
Manager's View
"I think it's time to re-evaluate the playing squad after what was the poorest performance for two or three seasons over the ninety minutes. The second half was much improved but in all honesty and I'm not going to pull any punches, we couldn't have been any worse.
"All over the park we were way, way below the mark almost every single player were way, way, way below the standard they've consistently set themselves over the last two seasons or so. Everyone can have a bad day and I'll defend my squad if they have a bad day now and again but it's become too consistent now and we need to re-evaluate things significantly and that's what we'll be doing.
"Darren Keeling won't shy away from taking the blame for the third goal. I had a big decision to make today with Gary Hateley being available after being away for the last two weeks and in fairness to Darren he's been a good and loyal number two for the last season or so. He hasn't done anything too wrong in the last two games and I stuck my neck out and went with Darren today after having a chat with both of them. Darren's never made a mistake like that before and I'm sure he'll take it on the chin.
"We'd started the second half quite brightly and then to concede a goal of that manner that early when the ball went through his hands and into the net.
"Credit to the lads they did keep going and it couldn't have got any worse than the first half. We huffed and puffed but there was very little quality which you need at this level. We are really going to re-evaluate things and that includes the management. We are always very honest and open and if there is anything we need to take on board we will do that.
"That performance was unacceptable and half if not more of the crowd today had come all the way from Gresley and I don't do this very often but I can only apologise because that was embarrassing and the buck stops with me at the end of the day.
"Royce Turville isn't fully fit but he's fit enough to start and Dean Oliver isn't fully fit as he's not had much football lately and he's come off with a bit of a groin problem today.
"Yes we had a few missing today like Jamie Barrett, Mickey Lyons and Jordi Gough who yet to feature this season but we can't use that as an excuse because we've assembled a squad and many times this season regardless of unavailability, injuries or suspensions you need to dig into that squad and one thing it's told us in the last few games is that the squad isn't as good as perhaps we thought it was so we need to make sure that any changes we make are positive and add in the areas we need it.
"A few of the lads in the dressing room need to look at themselves and as I said I'm going to look at myself and how I conduct things and how things are at the moment because no way the momentum this club has built over the last two seasons will start dropping. From my point of view top six in the league is still my target but at the moment we look nothing like a top six side with the inconsistent performances we are showing. We will put it right absolutely no doubt about it.
"In some respects the league cup on Tuesday will have some added significance. Richard Butler has been patient waiting for his chance. He came on today and he talked and organised and while he's not match fit he deserves an opportunity.
"We will have to do a bit of a body count. Obviously Dean has come off and Royce has had a really good ninety minutes today. He needed that to be honest but come Tuesday he may be a bit stiff and leggy so we'll just have to have a look at who's available.
"Arron Dillon was working today. He's started a new job and his availability needs to be checked out over the next few weeks. Jamie Barrett will not be risked; Barry Woolley will hopefully resume training this week. Mickey Lyons will not be risked as his hamstring will not be healed in time I don't think. Jordi Gough is two or three weeks away from any sort of match action as he only resumed training last week so we'll just have to wait and see who's available and try and get through it.
"We are trying to bring players in. We have a seven days in which ends on Monday and after that showing there could be one or two more seven days put in after that performance. It's not a knee jerk reaction, it's something we've been thinking about for a while that if things didn't improve we'd go out and strengthen so I expect or secretary to be busy over the next week or so. We are looking to improve everywhere - defensively, midfield, upfront as all units of the pitch need improving based on what we've seen over the last few weeks.
"You need to go back a few weeks to when we beat Loughborough. It was a real good performance. We are strong at home but away from home we've got a real soft underbelly. Almost like Westfields, although we played well there and got spanked, we didn't get going with the players still on the coach and it's not acceptable and I take the responsibility for it being the manager. We will turn it around. We are very loyal to most squad members in terms of allowing them to make the step up this year and the conclusion is that a few of them may not be good enough to consistently perform at this level and we need to address that quickly."
