Defeat piles on
ADISMAL secondhalf showing at Meadow Lane saw County slump to a fourth defeat of the campaign, with promotion rivals Notts County easing to a 2-1 win – as the pressure increased on boss Simon Rusk.
After a goalless first half, goals from Kyle Wootton and Frank Vincent left The Hatters 12 points adrift of league leaders Grimsby just two months into the season – with the almost 2,000 Hatters supporters in attendance in Nottingham voicing their discontent at the final whistle.
The tireless Ben Whitfield had grabbed his side a consolation deep into stoppage time with a penalty following a high boot on new boy Antoni Sarcevic, but in truth, the hosts had long since done enough to ease their way to all three points.
After an eventually comfortable 3-0 win over eighth-tier Stamford in FA Cup action a week prior, Rusk opted for three changes to his line-up at Meadow Lane, with captain Liam Hogan, midfielder John Rooney and striker Scott Quigley all coming in to start in place of Arjan Raikhy, Whitfield and the injured Zeki Fryers.
Sarcevic, after completing a stunning move from Bolton Wanderers just 24 hours earlier, took a place on the bench – but would be needed sooner rather than later for Rusk’s side.
As was expected between two sides who prefer to play patient, possession-based football, things were cagey and tight for much of the first half, although the hosts did enjoy the better of proceedings when chances did arrive.
Rooney, deployed this season in a deeper role, seems to be struggling to adjust to the pace of games in the centre of the field, with that typified by Notts’ holding midfielder Jim O’Brien breezing past the Hatters midfielder on a number of occasions to see up long-range efforts for Ruben Rodrigues, both saved comfortably by Ethan Ross.
The former Barrow midfielder endured a rough afternoon at Meadow Lane but did go on to display exactly why he divides opinion so much among the supporters at Edgeley Park, with a number of eye-catching crossfield balls to get County on the front foot.
The latest of those through balls in the first half produced County’s best chance of the afternoon, as Ash Palmer kept things alive at the back post to head into the path of skipper Hogan, who saw his drilled effort hacked off the goalline.
But, even then, Notts County still managed to one-up their visitors and go even closer, with striker Wootton inexplicably missing from yards out on the stroke of half-time, following good work by fullback Joel Taylor.
New boy Sarcevic had replaced the injured Paddy Madden midway through the half for County, although Bolton’s former skipper would have been forgiven for feeling slightly lost, as the attacking midfielder was deployed as a striker alongside target man Quigley.
Things had seemed to reach the ‘untenable’ stage for Rusk following a 3-0 defeat at neighbours Halifax last month before a surprise 2-1 win over Wrexham a week later sparked a run of four successive victories – but the worry at half-time here for those of a County persuasion was the similarities with that heavy defeat at
The Shay. The hosts, like in West Yorkshire, were more and more frequently overrunning County in the
centre, with chances starting to flow more regularly before the half-time whistle came.
Full-back Dion KellyEvans blazed an effort wide, before The Magpies did take the lead less than ten minutes into the restart.
Captain Liam Hogan has endured a rocky start to the campaign for County, and suffered a similar afternoon at Meadow Lane as he got sucked into a challenge on Kelly-Evans, who easily burst past the former Salford skipper and teed up talisman Wootton to ire home via a slight Ash Palmer deflection.
As at Halifax, The Hatters
seemed to lose all trace of confidence or strategy following the opener, and, with Notts County’s tails up, defender Connell Rawlinson pounced on a heavy Quigley touch to release Rodrigues, who had the easiest task to square for Vincent in acres of space to roll underneath a helpless
Ross. Whitfield did slot home the latest of penalties to provide little consolation in stoppage time, but Notts will know that the final 2-1 scoreline only served to flatter the visitors.
As has been the case in all four of County’s earlyseason defeats so far, it is more the manner of the defeat which provides cause for concern than the actual defeat.
That County ended the game with a front three of Antoni Sarcevic, Ollie Crankshaw and Ben Whitfield encapsulated The Hatters’ current struggles – a battle to establish an identity, a style of play and a discernible game-plan.