Evo-Stik NPL Division One South
Lyme Valley Stadium, Newcastle-under-Lyme
Saturday, 20th October 2012, 3.00pm
Gresley Suffer More Away Day Blues
Gresley suffered again on their travels as they came unstuck at Newcastle. It's now five games since they celebrated an away win and with a very difficult game at Kings Lynn on Tuesday followed by trips to Market Drayton and Sutton Coldfield an improvement is hoped for to prevent a slide down the table.
Managers Gary Norton and Martin Rowe kept faith with the same staring eleven that had beaten Halesowen in midweek and there was a surprise, but a very welcome one, with Rob Spencer being added to the bench after recovering far quicker from his foot injury than was expected.
However, the formation which had gleaned the points on Tuesday was not having the desired effect in a largely forgettable first half where both sides snuffed each other out for long periods.
A lovely ball from Danny Holmes over the Newcastle back line to Richard Hanslow offered a slight chance. The striker rounded the home keeper Chris Fletcher but the angle was to acute and so he passed it across the area to Phil Massingham who didn't quite connect with the ball but as the ball headed towards the goal a defender's hand clearly stopped the ball from crossing the line but neither the referee or his assistant saw the offence and play was allowed to continue.
That miss was to haunt the visitors because three minutes late Town went ahead in a somewhat fortuitous manner. A miss header from Jack Harrison came out of the area and a speculative long-range shot from Christian Millar took a deflection which wrong footed Gresley keeper Gary Hateley who could do nothing to stop the ball from flying into the bottom far corner of the net.
In the final minute of the first half Town extended their lead with another 'fluke' when Tom France was forced to the by-line and with his back to goal he managed to hook the ball over his shoulder and saw it fly over the keeper and in at the far post.
Gresley made a good start to the second half and should have reduced the arrears when Hanslow ran onto the ball but his shot was grabbed at the second attempt by Fletcher at his near post.
Town's third goal was another fortunate affair. An attempted clearance on the halfway line hit a Town player and the ricochet sent Neville Thompson through on goal were he beat Hateley smashing the ball past the keeper.
Gresley got themselves on the score sheet with the best goal of the game. Jordi Gough picked the ball up just inside the opposition half and ran forward before hitting an unstoppable shot that left Fletcher rooted to the spot as the ball arrowed into the top corner.
The visitors seemed to spring into life for arguably the first time in the game and a shot cross was spilled by Fletcher but Spencer could only fire the rebound wide of the empty net.
James Jepson then had a glorious chance to get a goal when Marc Goodfellow picked him out but the final shot disappointingly flew wide of the upright.
Hateley who had been largely untroubled in the second half reacted well by pushing Matt Lowe's free kick wide at his near post.
At the other end a quick free kick from Gresley had to be pushed away by Fletcher and then well into injury time Hanslow had another chance but fired his low shot past the far post.
Manager's View
"It was a really frustrating today for a number of reasons. There were lots to encourage us the other night the way we passed and moved the ball at home. We saw enough of the system we tried to give it another go today and see what we could learn from it.
"It was fair to say we were certainly not anywhere near the standards we set ourselves the other night and that was the frustrating thing. I felt our passing, our movement, our running over the deck was a little bit sloppy and too many times for me, particularly in the first half we went a little too long too early instead of wanting to get on the ball and see people's faces, making our passing angles and triangles working the ball with a tempo which we did the other night.
"There were too many people where you could just see their backs and their numbers. Second half I thought we started fairly well but unfortunately we conceded a sloppy goal to add to the two fortuitous goals.
"I don't think we played particularly badly in the first half. We can certainly play a lot better certainly it wasn't like Lincoln. Their first goal the guy had a pop and it took a deflection off Michael Nottingham and left Gary Hateley rooted and the second one, I asked their number ten whether he meant it and he said he'd been watching Messi ! He just put the ball back into danger area and it's landed inside the far post but fair play to him for the opportune strike and it's given them a two-nil lead.
"The third goal, I didn't see too much of the build up but I do question whether Gary Hateley could have come off his line a bit quicker and mopped it up but these things happen. But we made a good fist of it after that and an absolutely fantastic goal from Jordi Gough. We then had two fantastic chances where we got in behind them and James Jepson has not managed to hit the target and work the keeper and then Richard Hanslow has got in again with another great piece of football and dragged it wide so on another day we may have come back with a point.
"It's frustrating because we haven't hit anywhere near the form we wanted to. We are a bit inconsistent at the moment and we've got to work on that over the next week or two.
"It was a huge bonus to have Rob Spencer fit to be honest. I didn't know until after Tuesday night's game that he might have had a chance to play. The bruising has gone and fortunately there was nothing more serious than a severe bang on his foot.
"We put Rob on, the reason being we felt we needed a bit of pace and injection up front. Rob never lets you down. Things always happen when Rob is on the pitch. He worked very, very hard and it's a bonus to have him back so quickly. Hopefully he's had no reaction from his injury so that bodes well for the future.
"We said after last Saturday's game that we would have a look around and see if we can improve the squad. Hopefully we can do that because a couple of seven days are in or have run out so I'm very confident of adding to the squad before probably next Saturday's game. We have got an outside chance of one before Tuesday's game to cover areas of the pitch to give us a bit of quality. One player is one who impressed us greatly when we played them and we are hopeful and the talks are quite positive.
"We've put seven days in for another player Jordan Nadat but Rocester will not waive the seven days for reasons I'm not going to publicise on here and there are one or two other players we're looking at. Whether we get them or not remains to be seen."
