Hiccups on our path to the play-offs
WRITING this column, obviously before the Brackley replay, I’m in a quandary with how to sum up last week’s games.
I’ve heard the performances described as ‘poor’ to ‘turgid.’
I have some agreement with both but I’d settle on somewhere in between.
We seemed to have lost the ability to play football – at times against both Nuneaton and Brackley we struggled to pass to a Blue shirt.
We lost the ability to run past the opposition with the ball, we hardly competed for the 50/50 balls. I have no idea why because leading up to Tuesday’s game against Nuneaton we’d been doing everything right to the extent I firmly believed we were play-off bound, after playing Dino’s boys I wasn’t so sure.
The visitors weren’t brilliant and got lucky with their goal as one of their infrequent shots hit the post and rebounded in off Ben Hinchliffe.
We never got going, our defence stood strong for most of the game but the midfield struggled for 90 minutes while the forwards were bereft of service and never really had a decent chance.
A draw would have been fair but if you don’t create the chances you ultimately pay the price.
On Saturday, in a break from the league, Brackley came to EP for the FA Trophy quarter final.
The Saints have been looking good all season and have been a bit of a boggy team for us.
The first half was just as bad as the Nuneaton game, lacking in both effort, style and skill but the second came to life when first the Saints went one up from a corner and then County equalised not long after when Jimmy Ball, cleverly headed in as the ball rebounded off the crossbar from a great bit of commitment from Jason Oswell.
Nobody wanted a replay and both sides stepped up a gear though it has to be said County were by far the better team at this point.
Stephen O’Halloran had a thunderbolt of a shot that Oswell just turned wide, Duxbury, Stephenson and Cowan all had decent crosses turned away by some last gasp defending but a draw it was and we have to travel to St James Park to contend with, not only a team that are unbeaten at home for months but also the predicted ‘beast from the east.’
Fingers crossed it’s on and doubly crossed we get a positive result.