Midland Football Alliance
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Saturday, 7th January 2012, 3.00pm
Hanslow Double Beats Highgate
By beating Highgate United at the Moat Ground Gresley kept up their unbeaten run and stretched it to eighteen games in all competitions beating last season's championship run-in of seventeen games.
Gresley manager Gary Norton made just one change to the squad that beat Dunkirk with young goalkeeper Tom Gutteridge replacing Gary Hateley who is on honeymoon. Opponents Highgate had made several changes to the side that lost to the Moatmen in late August.
The first half was easily forgettable as both sides struggled to get their game going with hardly any clear-cut chances but of those that appeared it was the visitors who went close on10 minutes with Steven Jackson's cross being met by Dale Moon but the final shot was well saved by Gutteridge.
Gutteridge was back in action fifteen minutes later this time making a fine save to thwart Luke Benbow as his low shot looked to be heading to the far bottom corner.
Gresley's first attempt on goal came on 38 minutes when Marc Goodfellow hit a volley that was pushed away for a corner by Shaun Edwards and in the closing seconds of a poor first half saw Jordi Gough hit a shot that fizzed over the bar.
The Gresley faithful were hoping that their side could at last get into gear, break down some stubborn defending and bring them some warmth on a cold afternoon. A glimmer of hope of such a revival came on 56 minutes. A long kick up field from Gutteridge seemed to unsettle the visiting back four. Turville took advantage and tried to loop the ball over the advancing keeper only to see his effort sail over the bar.
Gresley were beginning to apply some pressure and from Goodfellow's corner Michael Nottingham put a header over the bar.
The pressure paid dividends just after the hour mark when Goodfellow picked out Turville who in turn pushed a ball through to substitute Richard Hanslow to run on to and the young striker didn't disappoint as he ran forward before shooting a low shot past Shaun Edwards and into the net with the aid of the near post.
Minutes later Highgate had their keeper to thank again when he made a fine save diving low to near post to deny James Jepson. It was then Goodfellow's turn to be denied by the keeper as he acrobatically dived to his right to push the shot away for a corner.
The much needed second goal came on 72 minutes and again it came from a route one ball. Gutteridge launched the ball down the middle of the field where Turville did well to control before squaring a pass to Hanslow who slotted home.
Seven minutes later Gresley were inches away from adding a third when Hanslow fed Goodfellow down the right and after a fine run the resulting low cross into the box was a mere fraction away from Turville's outstretched foot sliding in the middle of the box.
In the closing four minutes of the game Hanslow could have added to his total. A cross from the right from Tom Betteridge found Hanslow at the far post but his header lacked any power to test Edwards.
The Gresley striker did have the ball in the net again but an raised flag from the assistant referee denied him the glory of a hat-trick.
Manager's View
"I've been saying all week that this was going to be a difficult game. When we played them at their place we only won one-nil despite having Tom Betteridge sent off for the last twenty, thirty minutes or so; and we missed a penalty.
"But, we saw enough that day to know that if they brought a similar side down it would be tough. We looked at the team sheet and they'd got several new faces and when you saw play they had some right pace in the side.
"Their number nine who's getting all their goals for them at the moment and you only have to look back at the games they have played and you'll see some really tight score lines, Stratford and Rocester have only just beaten them and they've had some wins themselves so we knew it was going to be a tough afternoon.
"The frustrating thing for me was that in the first half we didn't get out of second gear in possession of the ball but we defended for the most part quite well apart from the save Tom Gutteridge had to make after twenty minutes or so a real good save to keep us in it.
"We said at half time that we hadn't really got going and the only positive thing was we hadn't conceded. We weren't massively better in the second half but after an hour we tried to introduce a bit of freshness and within a minute the goal had come so we were really pleased with the win - a very hardworking win and a good three points and clean sheet for us.
"Richard Hanslow has done fantastically well for us this season. He was in the starting line-up and for a few games he was scoring and keeping Royce on the bench. He was due to start at Stratford but was taken ill before the game and that let Royce back in and he hasn't done anything wrong and him and Dean Oliver have been playing really well.
"Richard has been patient and has been waiting for his opportunity. Dean had a reaction to his ankle injury in the first half picked up at Dunkirk so he had to come off. So Richard has come on at half time and won us the game with cracking finishing and when you've got three forwards like that to pick from it's a great selection dilemma. It's the same with Mickey Lyons. We had Mickey and Gareth Langford both options for the middle of the park who both give you different things. We went with Mickey to come on first because we felt that in possession we just lacked that little bit of creativity to unlock things as it wasn't quite happening for us today.
"We switched Marc Goodfellow over to the right and the goals came from that. He had some good build-up play on the right and someone slipped Richard in and he took his goal well for the first one and we were really pleased.
"In the end we had a couple of half chances for Richard to have got his hat-trick and it would have been brilliant if he'd have done that but if you'd have offered me a two-nil at five to three I would have taken it - definitely.
"I felt some of the yellow cards weren't warranted. The referee had a bit of a fussy display. The countless times he called Jamie Barrett the captain in to speak to him I thought disrupted the game, but overall he's not had a too bad a game. We are here to watch football and not watch the officials and I think a couple of the yellow cards were a bit harsh.
"We were a bit worried because Danny Holmes picked one up early and we thought about taking him off after an hour or so just to protect him in case of any suspension for the Vase game. We ended up with three players on yellow cards. To be fair both sides contributed to a fair battling game and I don't think there was a bad tackle in the game and yet we've seen quite a few yellow cards. Royce Turville's yellow card was a bit harsh. I think it was for persistence because the ref had just spoken to him previously when in fairness three seconds before that he should have given us a free kick when Royce had a foul against him. When you've been spoken to at length by the referee and the captain called over and then five seconds later you go across to challenge a the full back and he goes down it's always going to be a yellow card whether it's deserved or not, it's just one of those things and fortunately it hasn't cost us today.
"I said to the lads today that no side in this league will give you anything. Ellsmere for example are in the bottom three and we didn't get a look in there in our last league defeat we got spanked three nil. They are in the bottom three and have beaten Rocester twice so it's a very competitive league. You only have to look at the results that Atherstone have had this season and you know our visit there will be a tough afternoon. It's away from home and we are not playing particularly well at the moment but we are grinding results out and we've got to make sure that we're nice and solid and at the very least we're organised and hope we'll create some chances and maybe play a little bit better.
"The beauty we have of such a competitive squad is that Rob Spencer who served his suspension against Dunkirk and missed a game over Christmas period for family reasons I spoke to him and said if Dean Oliver passed his fitness test he would be seventeenth man and when you look back over the squad in recent weeks the likes of Kyle Bryant has missed out one game, Aaron Dillon has missed out one game, Lee Barrow has missed out one game and now Rob.
"We are trying to rotate the squad around a little bit to make sure we have all the options we need on the bench. It's starting to get difficult because there are some frustrated lads out there and on the bench but at the minute we are still ticking results over. We need that squad and none more evident that today when we weren't playing particularly well and made the changes from the bench; Hanslow at half time and Lyons on the hour and both were instrumental in us winning the game and turning the nil-nil into giving us the advantage.
"We really do need the squad but I'm conscious that one or two guys are getting frustrated and may start to look elsewhere but with that in mind we have got targets already identified so if anyone came in for a player or if one left we would then serve the seven days if the issue arose but fingers crossed that won't come for a while and we can keep the squad happy."
