Reds fall foul of ‘bizarre’ call
ACCRINGTON Stanley suffered their first home defeat of the new season last Saturday at the hands of Oxford United.
Three late goals from the visitors condemned John Coleman’s side to a second straight defeat in Sky Bey League One after the Reds had fought their way back into the game on seventy-three minutes thanks to a penalty from Ryan Cassidy.
Stanley would then end the game with ten men after Dion Charles was shown a red card for an alleged stamp on Simon Eastwood in the visiting goal.
After a strange incident involving their team coach becoming unusable due to an antibacterial spray, the U’s had what you’d describe as a far from ideal start to their pre-match regime in Lancashire.
The broken-down team bus meant the bamboozled players and staff had to make their way to the Crown Ground in taxis and cars that had made the journey North, but it ultimately didn’t affect the team who swept aside a young Stanley outfit who look to be struggling to click into gear so far this season.
Early injuries have left both managers with depleted squads going into the game, Chelsea starlet Tariq Uwakwe picked up an injury in training to join Mohammed Sangare on the Stanley injury table.
And Sean McConville, although back in training, was still unavailable for selection after hobbling off against Rochdale on New Years Day.
Karl Robinson had similar selection headaches, the Liverpool native was without six of his first team, with Cameron Brannagan and Elliot Moore overcoming illness to make it into the squad late on.
There was also a familiar face to Stanley fans in Sean Clare who was shoring up the Oxford defensive line – Clare made eight appearances on loan for the Reds in 2017, scoring one goal.
As has been the norm this season, the opening exchanges consisted of both teams poking and prodding in an attempt to feel out their opposition.
The first meaningful action came from the men yet to register a league goal in this campaign, the visitors.
A corner was played out to an unmarked James Henry just outside the 18-yard box who played a nicely weighted cross onto the head of Dan Agyei, who’s effort bounced off the crossbar and back into danger. Luckily, Mark Hughes was on hand to clear the ball for another corner and the game remained 0-0.
Stanley created little in the way of real chances in the first half and at the other end United struggled to trouble Toby Savin at all, until right on the stroke of half-time.
Liam Kelly sent a hopeful ball down the left-hand side into the path of the experienced Matty Taylor being chased by Hughes.
Taylor was lucky to come away with the ball and passed well to Agyei who squared it across the six-yard box.
The ball passed a number of bodies but was struck into the back of the net from all of four yards by an onrushing Henry to put Stanley down at the half-way point.
After the restart it was more of the same, Stanley lacking composure in front of goal and Oxford showing us why they hadn’t scored in their first two games of the campaign.
As was the case last week in Burton, the last twenty minutes were to make up for a drab opening seventy.
The Reds kept plugging away and did draw level.
A free kick floated high into the box by Matt Butcher was on it’s way to
be met by Harvey Rodgers, only for Eastwood in the goal to strike Rodgers in the head in an attempt to punch the ball away.
The referee took an age to make the decision, but Cassidy made no mistake from the spot to open his account in red and white on seventy two minutes.
After gaining a brief foothold in the game, the home team’s afternoon was about to take a turn for the worse with two incidents in the space of just one minute.
First, Taylor flicked the ball on well for Oxford and it was met by the advancing Joel Cooper. He cut inside and struck the ball low into the path of Hughes.
The Stanley centre half cleared the ball, but it struck Joe Pritchard from point blank range and bounced off his back into the Stanley goal.
Seamus Conneely couldn’t believe his side’s bad luck: “It was a freak goal, sometimes you can’t legislate for these things.”
However, things would only get worse.
A corner ball was whipped in over the sixyard box as Stanley again tried to draw level, Charles and Eastwood contested it in a large group of players.
The ball eventually made it’s way into the hands of the goalkeeper but a scuffle between both teams broke out.
It seemed to end uneventfully, however, Oxford players could be heard telling the officials: “He’s just stamped on his head.”
After a conversation between the referee and linesman, Charles was shown a straight red card and Stanley found themselves a goal and a man down only three minutes after equalising.
The Stanley boss called the decision “Bizarre.”
And had this to say to the media after the game: “from what I can gather the referee hasn’t seen it. Things like that happen in football and you’ve got to take it in your stride.”
He was also clear that he trusts the word of his player, stating that they would appeal the decision as Charles had pleaded his innocence: “Every week we seem to lose a key player, Tariq (Uwakwe) this week, Mo (Sanagare) last week, hopefully we won’t lose Dion for next week.”
The game then opened up in the final moments as Stanley pressed on, leaving gaps in behind for United to exploit. Taylor did just that, opening his account for the season with a late brace.
As Stanley pushed forward a long ball up front from Henry found the striker just inside the box. His touch gave him space to shoot away from Ross Sykes and into the net ensuring Oxford would have their first win.
His second came two minutes later when he met a cross with his head, Savin fumbled at the ball and it crept over the line to give a flattering scoreline to the visitors.
The defeat means Stanley drop to 17th in the table, but again Coleman called for calm heads at this early stage: “We know there’s areas that we’ve got to improve in and we’re working towards that.
“We’re still a young team, a bit naïve at times, but I think we will get better the more we work at it.”
His side now travel to familiar foes AFC Wimbledon this weekend in hope of avoiding a third successive defeat.
The Wombles are undefeated so far, chalking up their first win last Saturday against Fleetwood Town, but history is on the side of the Reds and they will be hoping to rebuild some of their opening day confidence, with only three defeats in 10 years against the men from south London.