We’d already missed a couple of half chances before Super Jonny Russell opened the scoring. Nwakali (in for Connell – hurrah!) plays in O’Keefe down the right and his low ball is swept home. For half an hour we are fairly rampant, but it’s oh-so-easy. Let’s not nail these hapless opponents. Let’s take it casual, we know we can score when we like. Injury time, and their guy goes down chasing a throughball. Ref blows his whistle, and from the East Stand it looks a penalty. Another week and we’d be looking at all-square at the interval. Just saying. I spend half time thinking this’ll end one-all, or we’ll win by 4 or 5. I’m wrong on both counts.
We race into 3-0 before the hour. Max Watters is clean through, and scrambles the ball through the keeper. His celebration says it all (PHEW!), jammy get. 3 mins later, DKD strides forward and slams it home from 25 yards. Isn’t this what Connell should (occasionally) do? And I’m sure inbetween the 3 minutes between our 2nd and 3rd, Phillips somehow fails to lift the ball over a stricken keeper who went down yesterday. (Seriously, how DID Phillips miss that? The keeper is on the floor, the goal is open...) I might have to re-appraise my half-time score prediction to 6 or 7. But no, Clarke sends the cavalry on to ruin it.
McCarthy comes on for Earl...and is booked within 5 minutes. Roberts and Connell come on for Pines and Russell on 68, Humphreys and Cosgrove for DKD and Watters on 81. Result? Crawley have 3, 4, big, BIG chances to score. The team look like they’ve been feeling sorry for Kilip, problies freezing to death in the rain. Every time they attack, they’re clean through. If they’d scored every chance, they’d be walking away with point(s) and we’d be crying into our beer. Lucky that...(see paragraph 1).
Onwards and upwards!
*** Kilip. Faultless. 3 saves I remember: Crawley, clean through, hit the post...rebound falls to another visitor and Kilip is back up to block. Last minute, sees shot late, somehow diverts it round post. Cross to back post and his own player (Phillips) bullets a header goalwards, tipped over. Kicking an improvement on Wrexham too.
** DKD. To cut and paste Wrexham ‘Looked a threat every time he had the ball and worked hard 2nd half.’ Not forgetting a 25 yard rasper into the far corner.
* Nwakali. The only time he ever lost the ball was in (narrowly) failing to thread throughballs to our attackers. One such ball led to our opener, as his diagonal found O’Keefe on the overlap. And that dragback where he sold 2 Crawley players...love it!
Official MOTM: O’Keefe
Londontykes’ MOTM: 1. O'Keefe 2. Nwakali 3. Kilip
Despatches:
All these PA warnings to the Ponty appear to have worked. It was SILENT 1st half. So you can imagine my surprise when Jonesy is complaining that all ifilth is giving him is ‘crowd noise’. It’s great when people take a pop song and change the lyrics (personally, I like to sing ‘Let’s get ready to crumble’ to Ant ‘n’ Dec’s ‘Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble’ (sic) everytime I make said dessert)...but our fans rendition of John Cale’s 4:33 is an earful to behold. Anyway, it was a bit better second half. A bit.
The players? It was good to see Roberts back (I s’pose; been winning without him) O’Keefe continues to be the talisman, setting up another goal and putting in a few other good crosses. Phillips too set up 2 incredible chances I don’t how they were missed. His low cross into the 6 yard box at 0-0 deserved more than DKD missing it and Watters the wrong side of the defender. 2 on 1 and we STILL don’t score. Russell somehow looks suited to playing in an advanced role, though provided possibly the funniest bit of the game (now we’ve won). 10 yards clear, you just KNOW he doesn’t have the legs to finish the job and by their penalty box he’s been overtaken by 3 defenders. He is the very definition of running in treacle. Though between him, DKD and Phillips, they prove you don’t need pace to be good. You need understanding, you need football intelligence, and these 3 have it. And Nwakali behind them. Watters was again another willing runner and holder up of the ball. Cosgrove came on and was, again, hapless. In defence, Gent got more into it the worse we got. I don’t know what that says. Earl again looked confident. The break’s done him good. MdG put them clean through (Kilip saving his bacon) while Pines...Pines. I hadn’t appreciated before today quite how SLOW he is, but in a footrace with a big headstart, only a last ditch tackle saved him. Then there’s his power (or lack thereof). How many times did he get bullied by a bloke half his size* on Satdy? Is it all about the mythical ‘centre of gravity’? Does Pines even HAVE a centre of gravity? Honestly, I understand why we play the big bloke in the middle of a 3, but (when in possession) what you need is a FOOTBALLER not a drunk. Thank goodness Crawley were too awful to take advantage. Have I said how AWFUL they were? Our goal difference of plus 6...etc
*ok, I exaggerate. He was problies more like three-quarters.
Oh, and it was good to see arch long distance runner Jim Armitage on Satdy. Who knew he had a brother!!? (Looks nothing like him.)
Drink du jour: Beartown Inception in Spiral. Bloody nice.
Away: 193. 1st set of away fans this season I never heard. But well done them who flew up from Gatwick to Barnsley International.
The Damage:
c.£8 petrol
= c.£8
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