FLEET SAIL PAST CITY TO EXTEND HOME RUN
EBBSFLEET UNITED continued their unbeaten home start to the season with a comfortable victory against fellow promotion chasers St Albans City.
Construction on a new stand at Stonebridge Road may still be ongoing, but the hosts made light work of a visiting side that arrived two points and two places above them in the National League South.
Three goals inside the first 21 minutes, including a stunner from Sam Deering seven seconds after kick off, were enough for Daryl McMahon’s Fleet to move above their opponents into fourth.
Defeat for Ian Allinson’s Saints, their third of the season, sees them slip to sixth, despite Dipo Akinyemi’s spectacular second-half consolation.
The Hertfordshire side finished the game a man light after Tom Bender received a straight red card for a late, heavy challenge on Fleet right wing-back Anthony Cook.
Ebbsfleet boss McMahon said: “It was a fantastic goal from Sam, an incredible piece of skill and we kicked on superbly from there, our pressing was really good in the first half and that’s how we got the goals.
“We defended really well as a team for the whole 90 minutes, which was really pleasing. We said at the start of the season we wanted to make Stonebridge Road a difficult place to come and so far we are doing that.”
The home crowd were celebrating with just seconds on the clock after Deering picked up a loose ball in his own half and audaciously lobbed James Russell from fully 50 yards.
United doubled their lead after a quarter of an hour, when the visiting defence parted and Darren McQueen calmly rolled the ball into the bottom corner.
And it got even worse for City minutes later after they failed to clear their lines, allowing Deering to rifle home a third following a one-two exchange with Stuart Lewis.
Akinyemi offered hope for Saints just before the hour, beating home keeper Nathan Ashmore with a powerful shot from 25 yards, before Bender was sent off for bringing down Cook on the halfway line.
Saints boss Allinson said: “We didn’t start well enough today and 3-0 could so easily have been 5-0.
“We have to defend better than that and we know it, you can’t give a team like Ebbsfleet that kind of head start and expect to get something from the game.
“Today we were poor and got punished.”