Midland Football Alliance
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Saturday, 15th October 2011, 3.00pm
Hard Earned Point For Gresley
Manager Gary Norton had to make changes again to his starting eleven has injuries and absences took their toll.
New signing Michael Nottingham came in to partner Lee Barrow at the heart of the defence and Jordi Gough made an unexpected start after Adam Betteridge succumbed to an injury in the warm-up.
Richard Hanslow, who had missed the previous four games replaced the injured Royce Turville playing alongside Rob Spencer up front. Another new signing from Mickelover Sports Kyle Bryant took a place on the bench.
Both managers would have left this game thinking they could or rather should have taken all three points but to be honest a draw was probably the right result in what was an entertaining game with both sides playing good fast moving football.
Causeway showed why they are high-flyers in the league with Aaron Lloyd firing wide early on. Gresley replied with a good move as Marc Goodfellow picked out Matt Hill who in turn found Spencer who put his header over the bar.
The visitors took the lead on 12 minutes when Danny Priest got the better of Hill near the left bye-line and then somehow managed to fire his shot across Gresley keeper Gary Hateley and into thefar bottom corner of the net.
Gresley hit back almost immediately with Hanslow making a good run into the area bit his shot was palmed away by United's keeper Tom Turner for a corner. From the corner the ball eventually came to Hanslow whose low shot into the area Nottingham stretching put the ball over the bar.
The home side drew level on 27 minutes. A great ball from Gareth Langford found Mickey Lyons over on the right and his cross was powerfully headed home by Hanslow from 7 yards.
Six minutes later Gresley took the lead when a powerful low shot from Spencer was flicked over the keeper by Hanslow.
As was expected United came back with Priest hitting the far post but their equaliser wasn't long in coming. Craig Gregg was left to run into acres of space down the right easily beating the offside trap and his cross was smashed past Hateley by Sam Beasley.
Gresley were denied from taking the lead early in the second half when Gough's run down the left ended with a shot that Turner pushed away to his left. Goodfellow was quick to react hitting a volley that crashed against the junction of bar and post.
Another chance came for Causeway but after making a great run into the box and getting into a very dangerous position Lloyd decided to do too much and Hateley denied him blocking his shot with his legs.
Gresley's defensive frailties were beginning to show themselves again and Adam Meacham was allowed to run through the middle but the finish was poor firing well over the bar. Minutes later the Gresley back line was again sliced in two very easily this time by Lloyd but his shot was deflected away for a corner.
Lyons had a golden opportunity to give his side the lead once more when Hanslow's shot was blocked and bounced out to the midfielder who disappointingly ballooned his shot from a good position over the bar.
Gresley didn't seem to learn from their earlier defensive errors and a clever ball lifted over the backline saw Gregg race onto the ball before hitting a shot into the side netting much to the relief of the home supporters.
The hard working Spencer also crashed a shot into the side netting but the visitors could have snatched all three points deep into time added on when Rob Blair headed Bearsley's corner narrowly wide.
Manager's View
"Overall I thought the lads that came in did alright. I thought Michael Nottingham had a cracking game and bearing in mind that he only met the lads on Tuesday when we had an internal game against the reserves and he looked confident and assured and in the second half and because we were a few goals up I swapped him to play for the reserves as he hadn't been stretched. He got around the pitch well and I think he looks a lot like Marcel Desailly to be honest. I was a little worried because he looked at little too laid back for me at times but he's very composed.
"He's had a good debut and let's see if he can follow that up because it's consistency that we've lacked this season. Lots of our players have had one good game or two good games and we need to see if we can do it for seven, eight, nine games but it was a promising start from him.
"Richard Hanslow was almost forced to come back into the team. He's been away two and a bit weeks. He looked sharp on Tuesday but he's clearly going to be short of fitness but we were almost forced to start him. Dean Oliver, although he passed a fitness test, we didn't want to risk him from the start and Royce Turville has just tweaked a tight hamstring that he felt towards the end of last week's game and very early on Tuesday it was evident that he was struggling. He probably could have made the bench today but he could still feel it during the fitness test so we need to be patient and we'll get these quality players back. Royce proved last week how important he is.
"A big positive today was Jamie Barrett making the bench a week or two earlier than planned. Adam Betteridge went down in the warm up with a hamstring and groin problem which brought Jordi Gough onto the pitch a little ahead of schedule and he had ninety minutes and fingers crossed he hasn't had any reaction. I thought Jordi did alright as well.
"Causeway are a good side. You could see in the first half with their movement particularly with their eleven and ten dropping deep and their nine as well. We were a little naive in terms of the goals - there were a few things we could have done better with the goals. Defensively we are a low on confidence. I was particularly frustrated with the second goal. We'd almost assumed the ball was going out and we didn't recover quickly enough and it was a bit of a soft goal.
"The first goal was from a cracking move with a great finish. But again it's come from a throw in where we didn't set up properly. They are a good side and up until their game midweek were unbeaten and for a quarter of the season gone it's no mean feat.
"We were pleased with our first half but the second we weren't very pleased with. We gave the ball away far too easily. We went long too early and we didn't get any rhythm and tempo with the ball. In the first half apart from the first ten minutes and the last ten minutes there were a lot of encouraging things out there.
"There were a couple of players missing. Ashley Day says he wants to stay and fight for a place. He couldn't make it to training due to transport problems but we spoke in the week and I said he was part of the plans if he fights hard enough and performs consistently if he gets a chance. I was expecting him in on Thursday but he didn't come so we'll see what happens with Ash.
"Regarding Carl Slater, we've spoken at length. He's not stayed away because of being dropped he's not been enjoying his football for quite a while and I think that's reflected in his form and we'll just have to wait and see what happens. There were one or two supporters shouting words of wisdom about Carl and I had a frank exchange with one who I suggested didn't know the full story so should keep his comments to himself. People do not know the situation and you can sit behind a keyboard and pass criticism on but we've done nothing wrong and we'll see what happens with Carl.
"I don't go on our forum but my point is don't pass comments on things you don't know about and have all the facts. I've heard today that Carl has signed for Mickleover and other things and I'll put that right - he hasn't signed for Mickleover and we've had no approaches for him. He trained with them on Thursday and that's it. I said to Carl today that I'd like him to stay at the club but he's got some thinking to do about where he wants to go with his career. He's 29 years old and he's been at this club and given it great service over the years but by his own admission he's not enjoying it this year and maybe in his mind a fresh start somewhere else would do him good. But, from my point of view he's a quality player and a local player who we don't want to lose but the ball is very much in his court.
"In some quarters we may have been criticised for entering next week's Coalville Charity Cup but I've just said to the lads that it couldn't have come at a better time for us. We've got a number of lads coming back from injury who need competitive action and also one or two new lads. It gives us a chance to work on some defensive things and we could have another new signing in there. We've been very busy and all the hard work has started to come to fruition. In a few weeks' time things will settle down and hopefully we can get over these injuries.
"We want to win the competition but it's but it's the least of our priorities in terms of the competitive games we've got this season so we'll go out there and be selfish and use it to give certain players pitch time without really being bothered about the result although we'll go there and try to win it."
