EVERYBODY JUST LOVES RAYMOND!
DAGENHAM & Redbridge had Frankie Raymond to thank after a superb late goal snatched the points against relegation-threatened York City.
Despite plenty of effort from both teams, the first half at Victoria Road ended goalless and the second half looked to be following a similar narrative.
That was until the 83rd minute when Raymond, who had come off the bench, picked the ball up on the edge of the area after quick passing from the Daggers.
The midfielder was able to shift the ball onto his trusted left foot before curling an effort past debutant Scott Loach in the York goal.
It was a rare moment of quality in an otherwise scrappy game, but Daggers assistant manager Darren Currie wasn’t concerned with the quality of the match given it resulted in a home win.
“I don’t care because we won!” said Currie. “On the back of the last couple of games where the performances have been disappointing, we said we had to be resilient and hard to beat, hard to break down.
“We were difficult to play against, everyone put their body on the line which was pleasing.
“The one bit of quality we showed in the game led to the goal, it was a nice build up lead-
ing to Frankie’s goal. We’ve won the game and I’d take another seven of them.
“It was scrappy and the way they choose to play, they’re quite direct into Jon Parkin and they have some big boys up front.
“We’ve changed our shape to accommodate how York do things and when Andre Boucaud isn’t in the team, we tend to play less football.
“That’s no disrespect to the other boys in there, but ‘Boucs’ plays the way he does and can get people playing.
“The other boys have gone in there and put in a battling performance, but it was what was required today.”
York boss Gary Mills, meanwhile, cut a disappointed figure as the Minstermen missed out on the chance to make up ground on their relegation rivals.
“I think that’s tough on us and we’ve ended up losing to maybe one bit of quality from their lad with the goal,” he said.
“We’ve hit the bar, hit the post and I couldn’t see us losing the game. I thought we were going to win it and with the balls into their box, we had the chances to do it.
“Their lad has used a bit of quality to get them the goal. It’s disappointing, but I’ll tell the fans, and I’ve told the players, we’ll keep fighting, battling away. “Tuesday is one of our games in hand. We have to bounce back, and we’re big enough and strong enough to do that. “You have to stay switched on and you always look back, thinking if you could have stopped a goal, but the lad’s done well on the edge of the box. “We had two or three chances ourselves, so it’s a disappointing day for us. It’s another game gone, but I don’t think league-wise anything has changed. “Now we go into two weeks where we have our games in hand to play. All I can say is we will work as hard as we can to get a win at Macclesfield on Tuesday.”