I don't normally do a match report for home games as I'm usually not home and sorted before several have already been posted, however I am sitting through the x-factor so I need something to do while this dross is on.
First of all, pretty much the coldest I’ve ever been at a game. I had to scrape snow off the car before we left and the temperature barely made it above zero all day. I even had a Bovril before kick off, boy I had forgotten how good that stuff is, proper football drink.
Overall, not the prettiest match you will ever see but no doubt in my mind we fully deserved the win.
Attendance around 2330 of which 300 were away fans, which once again leaves a core of 2000 home supporters. Quite what the club has to do to attract more supporters is beyond me. That said, the pop side hasn’t been so packed all season.
My only gripe, which could turn into full on rant tomorrow depending on the draw, is that 2000 will turn into 10,000 who want tickets if we draw Man Utd at home. I appreciate that as a season ticket holder I will have first choice, but if there are 1000 season ticket holders then 1000 there today deserve the chance to be first in line for a ticket. The club needs to start thinking of a scheme to recognise those who, whilst not season ticket holders, go every week. I also appreciate that it would have been wrong to give vouchers out today, as we would have looked a bit presumptuous. But possibly some scheme where ALL home games stamped in a book or something, after all don’t the big clubs have some scheme like that? Those that go more often get priority. We have reached the 3rd round in 5 of the last 6 years so if we keep that record going it’s going to happen again.
We lined up 4-5-1 as we have done for the last few games. The only change being Kee up front replacing Benyon and Macklin back from suspension joining the bench. We won the toss and chose to kick towards the away end first half, into a stiff cold breeze.
Both teams started brightly in the first half and one move in particular after about 10 minutes from us could have seen us open the scoring with a classy goal. Hemmings played a quick ball into Nicholson who then played an exquisite ball back to Hemmings (that 1-2 taking 3 Walsall guys out of play).Hemmings they whipped over a beauty of a cross which Kee just failed to get on the end of.
On the other had Walsall’s best opening of the first half was when one of their guys was allowed to run into the box and with only Bevan to beat he stabbed his hot about 6 yards wide. An atrocious miss and probably explains why they are struggling as they didn’t really look like scoring all afternoon. This also prompted our fans to sing “you’re shit and you know you are” only to be met by them singing “we’re shit and we know we are”. Nice touch.
The build up to our goal was great. Movement off the ball meant that midfield opened up and Mansell intercepted a pass deep inside our own half, surged forward virtually unchallenged to about 25 yards out where he then laid a ball off to Hemmings who was in the box with his back to goal, he turned towards the goal and went down. I need to see it on TV later to be convinced it was a stonewall penalty, however as I seemed to be in the minority I will say it was a penalty, but who cares anyway. Kee grabbed the ball straight away and no one made any attempt to grab it off him. The keeper, who made a c*ck out of himself all day, tried to waste as much time as possible discussing with the referee where he should stand etc. Kee unfazed by his theatrics stepped up and blasted the ball to the keepers top left and although he went the right way he was nowhere near it. With a minute to go before half time people always say it’s a good time to score, although I would say any time is a good time to score.
We dominated the first 20 minutes after halftime and our pressure deserved a goal, or two. Their keeper (who is still a c*ck) pulled off 3 superb saves, 1 in the first half from Zebs whose shot was a bit weak, then in the second half he tipped a Nicholson free kick around the post and then saved another effort from Zebs.
Then for some reason we dropped deeper and they gained the upper hand for the last 20 minutes. You would hope that with them pressing and us adopting 4-5-1 that we could catch them on the break but it didn’t happen. Walsall huffed and puffed but I standby my earlier statement that they didn’t really look like scoring, yes Bevan had 4 or 5 shots to save, but to be honest they were all straightforward.
We made all 3 substitutions; Stevens on for the lively Hemmings who was injured, Robertson on for O’kane, tactical as Robbo went to right back and Manse back into midfield and finally Gritton for Kee.
Gritton had a good run down the line right at the end before slipping a great pass inside to Zebs, but he hit a weak shot when he had the opportunity to kill the game off.
I have mentioned their keeper, Walker was his name but as someone else said that L should be an N. Although he kept his team in it he also remonstrated with the ref and linesman ALL afternoon, sometimes going all the way up to the half way line to have a whinge.
The last 10 minutes dragged, as did the 4 minutes of injury time, but you could see what it meant to the players, from both sides, when the final whistle went. Our players were overjoyed whilst they looked really dejected.
They may have had as many shots as we did but the difference was that ours brought good save from Wa*ker, whilst theirs were saved comfortably by Bevs.
Having made the 3rd round 5 times out of 6 now surely we deserve one of the big boys, PLEASE.
My view on the players;
Bevan; Did everything asked of him, to be fair he probably made it look easier than it really was. Still think he is carrying an injury as he rarely kicked the ball out of his hands, although he did get down well a couple of times.
Mansell; Steady at right back but still prefer him in midfield. Fantastic run to set up the penalty.
Branston; A rock in defence. Lost count of the headers he won.
Ellis; Same as Branston really, they worked well together today.
Nicholson; Two great free kicks that the keeper did well to save. Also a couple of corners were right on the money.
Hemmings; The more I see him the more impressed I am. Great trickery, not even sure he knows which way he is going, let alone the defenders. Great that he is staying until the end of the season.
Zebroski; A bit quieter than usual but still a good game. Had a couple of half chances that could have eased the pressure, as a second goal at any stage would have killed the game.
Wroe; Steady game.
Oastler; Someone else will have to say how he played because I really can’t recall either way. It was about 10 minutes to go when he won a header that I realised he was playing.
Kee; I thought he had a good game, he holds the ball up well. Stronger than Benyon but doesn’t look as potent in the box. GREAT penalty.
Stevens, Roberston, Gritton weren’t on long enough to really warrant much comment.
As for picking a Man on the Match, I have no idea?
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Pre match entertainment was different. Bucks asked in his post match interview if fans could make a suggestion for future pre match entertainment, he could do worse than put a call into Gary Barlow and see if take that are available, not sure anyone would be against that would they?
. I should be able to listen to this in it's entirety, without interuption or fecking egg chasing!!
