Today we travelled to Saltney for our first league game since August, we needed to kick on and start picking up points. A couple of changes were made with
Phil fitzpatrick coming in for his debut in the centre of defence and
Jamie monk in for
Alex Rowlands. The conditions were very windy and was going to make it hard for both teams. The first 10 mins was a settling down period for both teams, we began to play some nice football and got some joy with balls in behind there fullback, Saltney had a goal disallowed for offside on 20 mins, on 26 mins a through ball from
Mike Parry put
Josh Millington in with a chance of getting the ball before the onrushing keeper, he got a touch to the ball and the keeper tried to pull out but did catch him for a penalty, or so we thought, the referee decided to award a goal kick. Saltney won a corner on 28mins and the striker had a free header at the far post from 6 yards to make it 1-0, straight from our kick off we were 2-0 down after we decided to pass the ball straight to the winger who put an inch perfect cross for the striker to get his 2nd goal with a diving header from 12 yards. 2 mins later it was 3-0,we lost possession and it was like the red sea parting giving the Saltney player the easiest of chances to slot past Josh for 3-0. After a good start, we lost the game in a 4 min spell. We managed to get to half time without conceding again. A few words were said at half time and the players needed to put some effort in and get some pride back. The 2nd half was a bit better with us using the wind to our advantage and had a go at Saltney, we snatched at a few chances and couldn't find a goal. It was then the referee in on the act again when he judged the striker not to be offside after clearly being 5 yards behind our defence before linking up with his teammate to make it 4-0. This got to the players and the referee booked one for dissent, it was 5-0 soon after when we decided to give up chasing back as we thought it was offside. With 16 mins to go
Adam Peters was sent off for retaliation after being on the end of a heavy tackle, we did manage to pull a goal back through a
Josh Millington penalty. Ft 5-1. A very disappointing day for myself as it looked as though some players gave up, you can't do that at any level or you will get punished, a mad 4 min spell killed us and we chucked the towel in. It's back to the drawing board and getting the players ready for training and brickfield at home next week.
