PEARSON TO THE RESCUE AS DRAGONS EARN REPLAY

A LAST-GASP goalline clearance from Wrexham captain Shaun Pearson ensured the Dragons earned a replay away at Chesterfield.

The Spirities opened the scoring on 11 minutes after Pearson failed to deal with Josef Yarney’s long ball forwards towards Mike Fondop.

Fondop, playing against his former club, took the ball in his stride before dinking a shot over the oncoming Rob Lainton to put his side in front.

Wrexham equalised midway through the second half. Devonte Redmond had only been on the field for two minutes, but his first involvement in the game was delivering an excellent cross that Bobby Grant would convert.

With just minutes left on the clock the game looked destined for a replay, but a ball over the top found Anthony

Spyrou through on goal.

Spyrou skipped past the oncoming goalkeeper to give himself an open goal, but Pearson’s exceptional block on the line secured his side a replay.

Wrexham boss Dean Keates was happy that Pearson was able to redeem himself and felt that Chesterfield stealing the win would have been against the run of pay.

“We need to start cutting out individual errors, it’s been the story of the season really,” Keates said. “Shaun held his hands up for the mistake straight away and he knows what he’s done.

“I’m glad that he had the chance to redeem himself somewhat, if it would have gone in I think it would have been a bit unfair on us.”

Wrexham looked rather flat in the game, but a triple substitution on the hour seemed to pump some life into the vistiors.

From then on Wrexham seemed to be camped in the Chesterfield half, with the Spirites relying on long balls to start attacks.

But the visitors seemed to struggle to provide the final ball on attacks, with a lot of blocks being made by Chesterfield from the edge of the box.

This came after a dominant first half from Chesterfied, with Joe Rowley and Fondop linking well together to cause a lot of problems for the Wrexham defence.

Spirites coach Mark Crossley felt that his side did enough to get through to the next round and that they are starting to put in performances of the quality they desire.

Crossley said: “I think with the amount of chances that we had today we should have won it, especially with that chance at the end.

“One of the main problems was that we were conceding to many goals, but the team seem to be defending better overall and defending as a team.”

The replay will see the two sides face off for the third time in the space of a fortnight after the Spirites beat the Dragons 1-0 in the league on Tuesday.