Boss delighted with away win
BARWELL continued their fine away form with a 2-0 victory at Matlock Town writes Luke Pawley.
The visitors dominated the first half, particularly through Elliot Percival and Matt Stenson on the right-hand side. Percival and Stenson delivered some pinpoint crosses, which Mitchell Piggon and Jake Whitmore failed to convert.
Matlock had their spells of pressure, with Jamie Jackson looking to cause a resilient Barwell defence problems by running into the channels.
Joe Doyle-Charles had the clearest chance for Matlock on 29 minutes. however Eddy Nisevic recovered well to deny him from inside the box.
Just three minutes later, Matt Stenson got his head on the end of a whipped cross from Craig Stanley at the back post to power the ball into the net. That header - which was Stenson’s tenth goal of the season - was the difference going into the break.
Matlock came flying out of the blocks in the second half. Jake Green had a shot deflected wide and Max Hunt headed wide from the resulting corner.
Heavy Matlock pressure kept Barwell camped in their own half at the start of the second period. The Barwell defence stood strong and weathered the storm to prevent Matlock from causing any serious threat.
Barwell slowly grew back into the game, with Owen Story and Jake Heath looked to create. With three minutes left to play, Barwell put some good play together and striker Mitchell Piggon rounded Phil Barnes in the Matlock net to calmly slot the ball home.
Follwing the match Jimmy Ginnelly said: “Absolutely delighted. Very, very threadbare. Very short on bodies.
“I think the lads have listened, they’ve done the simple bits today.
“We’ve gone for a strange system – 4-3-3 away from home – I don’t think people expected that. I thought we came out of the blocks very well.”
Asked if the team would stick with the 4-3-3 formation he said: “No, basically it’s just down to what personnel you’ve got available.
“We’re a small football club in a big league. We’re always going to be short on numbers. But I’ve got to pat my lads on the back, I thought they worked their socks off.”
On the teams record of worst discipline in the league Jimmy said: “We’ve had a chat with the players about it.
“I do like the fact that players are looking at stuff like that themselves.
“They’ve highlighted it themselves, I keep banging the drum about it. I think we’re very unlucky on 50 per cent of the cards we get. The other 50 per cent are for trivial stuff. I wouldn’t mind if it was for a nasty tackle or a pull-back or anything. But 50 per cent of it is for mouthing. Again, we’ve just had a meeting and we’re going to try and address it.