KINNEAR STUNNED BY BLUES
AN IMPERIOIUS display extended Chester’s unbeaten run to five matches and inflicted serious damage to Dover.
All the goals came in a frantic second half with Jon Hunt, James Allerby, Elliott Durrell, Craig Mahon and James Akintunde the men on target.
And it had Chester boss Jon McCarthy purring afterwards, telling The NLP: “The players are taking on board what we are telling them in training and today, particularly in the second half, it all gelled.
“Every one of the players deserved credit for the way they approached the game, they all put a shift in and they can rightly savour this performance, then on Monday it is back to work and we prepare for Tuesday’s game at North Ferriby.”
At the same time, however, it was a shock to the system for opposite number Chris Kinnear, although the Dover boss was philosophical afterwards.
“Some days you get days like today, but we have now got to get ready for Tuesday, a fresh game,” he added.
“We started slowly in the second half, if we had had a second keeper maybe we would have changed it but we didn’t. We were upset, but what good does that do? “It is not easy to come here at the best of times, but they have gone four games without conceding which makes it more difficult.
“It is not the end of the world, hopefully they [the players] have learnt from it.”
Both sides had chances in the first period, Dover top scorer Ricky Miller fired over with a thunderous effort from 20 yards, while Ross Lafayette brought out a brave save from the feet of Chester keeper Liam Roberts as he was about to pull the trigger.
At the other end, Chester’s best chance came after 27 minutes when Kane Richards went a good run down the left before cutting inside and firing straight across goal.
Chester, however, didn’t have to wait long to break the deadlock at the start of the second period – and they were soon celebrating twice in a minute.
Just six minutes into the re-start, Hunt netted from ten yards after the Dover defence had failed to deal with a Tom Shaw through ball. Then Allerby doubled the advantage 60 seconds later when he cut inside from the right and fired home from 15 yards.
Chester were now going for the jugular and were awarded a penalty 11 minutes from the end when Durrell was sent sprawling by Aswad Thomas – the midfielder dusting himself down to score from the spot.
Mahon made it four on 85 minutes when he rifled a low effort from 20 yards under Arnold before substitute Akintunde completed the rout after excellent work by Durrell down the right.