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20 January 2007

Scrappy win keeps pressure up

Coalville Town 2nd XI  4  Leicester Westleigh 2nd XI  0

DTZ 2nd XI East Midlands Division One

Coalville's second string continued their pursuit of league leaders Northampton Lions, but were uncharacteristically scrappy and lacklustre against lowly Leicester Westleigh.

Playing without their inspirational but unavailable captain Tony Crowie, Town started brightly enough and went ahead after only three minutes. Phil Sign picked up a ball in midfield and broke through the sloppy visitor’s midfield before slipping a pass through to Andy Whitby who fired home with a simple shot.  

After that, Town seemed to lose the plot as they poured forward in a tactical nightmare, oblivious of the need to pass the ball around and use the flanks. All players were guilty of trying to run the show on their own, intent on scoring at will, only to see play break down time and time again in their opponents half. 

Although they had virtually all of the play in the first half, the forwards were drawn into the middle of the pitch only to crowd themselves out and when they did break through into the visitors dee, the chances created were spurned by the home forwards when it was easier to score. Keeper Joel Barker was almost a spectator for the first half, however he had to be alert on a couple of occasions as Westleigh broke away to test the home defence.  

The second half saw a slightly different team as they woke up to better positional play, but still the tendency to crowd the play had not all disappeared. Sensing the need to up the tempo and kill off the game, a little more urgency and team play crept in as they started to play the ball down the wings and Scott Meadows made it two following some good work by Andy Whitby. 

The midfield was misfiring badly,  however Sign and Stuart Jobburn did their best to inject some skill, but even they were struggling. At the back, only Carl Marshall was able to hold it together, as he was called upon to make some timely tackles and interceptions when the ball was swept forward by the visitors.  

Even though Westleigh looked as they would never score, they managed to put Town under some pressure but in the end it was poor finishing by Westleigh rather than good defence by Town which kept the score down.

Following further poor finishing and the thought that it was going to be one of those days, Jobburn brought the game to life when he got on the end of a move started by Marshall as Chris Vernon supplied the pass for him to crack the ball home from just inside the dee, and the same player added a fourth after 66 minutes following a good square pass from Meadows, to make it three goals in two games.  

The rest of the game was played out as it started and it can only be hoped that Town have got the poor display out of their system as they will need all of their good recent form for the top of the table clash with Northampton Lions next week