The tone for this afternoon’s game between Stockport County and Cardiff City at Edgely Park was set after about forty five seconds when home centreback Brad Hills shoved Yousef Salech into advertising hoardings out by the corner flag as they both chased a ball which went out for a goal kick.
With memories of OllieTanner’s accident at Wimbledon when his collision with advertising hoardings put him out of action for four months still fresh in the mind, you feared the worst for our centre forward. However, after ignoring Hills’ offer of a helping hand to get to his feet, Salech carried on.
To my mind, Hills deserved a strong lecture from the referee at the very least and a yellow card would have been an appropriate response from, but, sorry for bringing this up again, League One officials have, by and large, shown themselves to be utterly hopeless in the seven matches we’ve played at this level in the last six weeks or so and Simon Mather proved to be no exception this afternoon.
Mr Mather chose to just get on with the game with barely a word said to Hills and so the die was cast. Stockport knew that they had a ref who would let an awful lot when it came to their defender’s “physicality” and so we saw all manner of blocks off the ball, fouls on the man in possession and what has become known as “shithousery” these days go unpunished.
Mr Mather was entirely inconsistent in his application of the laws in the opening stages in particular. In one farcical passage of play, two or three blatant fouls by the home side were ignored, while Salech was penalised for an innocuous foul as soon as he tried to “fight fire with fire”.
Salech has been given no protection by officials all season long and I wouldn’t be surprised if, ludicrously, he’s conceded more free kicks than he’s been given in his favour this season. League One officials seem to think that all benefit of the doubt should be given to defenders- a policy which strikes me as downright odd.
The thing was though that Stockport’s physical approach was working. Salech began to look dispirited and a little sorry for himself. Cian Ashford, someone who can be surprisingly good at tracking back and tackling, was having one of those afternoon’s where his head looks to be down from the first minute and only Chris Willock was offering any hope of coming up with something that might constitute an attacking threat.
Rubin Colwill did some really nice things, but to no great effect and began to take too much on himself, his brother was anonymous (partly because when ever he tried to make a forward run, there was an “accidental” collision with a home player, and Ryan Wintle was finding the going tough. At the back, the inclusion of Perry Ng and Calum Chambers brought back unhappy memories of last season and, although I didn’t think either of them were terrible, we didn’t look as secure at the back as we have done in most of our games.
The useless Mr Mather saw fit to book one player (Ng I believe for dissent!) and so Stockport kept on being physical until the very end, but, to be fair to them, the fouls weren’t so blatant after the first twenty minutes or so and they were also able to get the ball down and play some nice stuff – it wasn’t just all physicality, there was also a lot of good football played by Dave Challinor’s side as they took a firm grip on proceedings in the game’s second quarter..
Although we ended up winning the possession figures by something like 53/47, it was Stockport who were around 55/45 ahead at half time and you got the feeling that things only really changed back in our favour in the last fifteen to twenty minutes when they were prepared to sit back and protect their lead.
Stockport’s physical domination began to be reflected territorially and in terms of goalmouth incidents from about the twenty minute mark. First, a long boot upfield by home keeper Corey Addai was nodded on by Kyle Wootton into the path of young Icelandic forward Benony Breki Andresson whose shot beat Nathan Trott and came back off an upright. Andresson was then denied by a great Trott save, although you couldn’t help but think that he should have buried his close range header.
Andresson was involved again on thirty four minutes when Chambers might have been fouled out by the corner flag. Of course, the ref waved play on and when the striker went down under a challenge from Ng from the resultant cross he pointed to the spot. Now the fact that it was Ng involved makes me think it probably was a penalty, the pictures I’ve seen don’t really prove anything either way, but if any member of our squad was going to commit a foul in that position, it was Ng wasn’t it..
Ollie Norwood, still good enough to be a major influence at this level at thirty four, sent Trott the wrong way from the spot for the first league goal he’s conceded for us and only the second we;ve conceded in League One all season – both of them being penalties.
Stockport’s superiority continued with a couple of half chances falling to defender Joseph Olowu from corners and Will Fish, my City man of the match, came to the rescue when he denied Wootton after Wintle had lost possession.
City could not offer even an attempt on goal at the end of a one sided first half – Rubin Colwill’s long range free kick being blocked by the wall. Rubin did open up the home defence, but his passes were wasted by a poor final ball from the likes of Ashford and Joel Bagan.
The second half was not as uncomfortable as the first for City, but Trott still had to make another good save to deny winger Jack Diamond early on and Stockport might well have been given a second penalty when Joel Colwill sent Wootton I think it was tumbling.
City might not have been living as dangerously, but there was very little suggestion that they had an equaliser in them. Isaak Davies and the fit again David Turnbull replaced Ashford and Joel Colwill and they were quickly followed by Dylan Lawlor, Ronan Kpakio and Callum Robinson coming on for Ng, Chambers and Wintle.
An over zealous linesman kept on raising his flag to deny Fish’s diagonal passes to Willock (a still photo which I’ve not seen apparently shows his decision to disallow a Salech finish from a Willock case was borderline) which appeared to be our best hope of finding an equaliser.
However, with all of the substitutes helping to provide a slight improvement and Willock and Davies switching wings, City began to force the issue with a few corners – Lawlor’s introduction improved the team’s passing and although Kpakio had a testing time of it for Wales on Tuesday, here he made City’s right side far more energetic as he combined effectively with Willock.
Nevertheless, the seven minutes of added time were almost up when Willock swung in what at first looked an innocuous cross, but as it dropped into a central area six yards from goal, the home back three, who had all played so well and won their individual duals with City forwards hands down, seemed to suffer a collective brain fade as Salech was left in isolation to score with an easy header. You also had to wonder why Addai stayed on his line for a cross which was swinging towards him.
Some of the Stockport players fell to their knees in disappointment as three points that seemed there’s were snatched from them in a game they really should have won. As for City, they had not played well, but can take tremendous heart from scoring late on in another away game to pick up very valuable points. I also saw Luton and Stockport being selected as automatic promotion winners in at least one pre season pundit’s table and it’s heartening to note that we’ve visited both of them already and taken four points.
Nevertheless, Stockport must have been so frustrated by the outcome. Given that a run of one win in five, including a 4-2 defeat at Plymouth in their last match, had put the promotion favourites under a degree of early season pressure, theu probably couldn’t have played much better than they did – their game plan worked out a treat and, by any objective analysis, they deserved three points.
Yet, just like Port Vale in the other game where we’ve been dominated this season, they’d missed chances they should have punished us from and, while Vale didn’t have that lapse in defence to cost them, Stockport certainly did. Their three dominant centrebacks and a goalkeeper who’d barely had a serious save to make all went missing in action deep into added time when a good ball, but one put into an area that has to be defended by at least two of the four I mentioned, caused such consternation that our big tall centre forward was left with a headed chance he just could not miss.
We’ve won two and drawn two of our four away games with just yesterday’s Stockport penalty conceded and yet fans of Port Vale, AFC Wimbledon, Luton and Stockport could all claim with varying degrees of justification that they could have won as we’ve had uncomfortable spells in all of those four games in which we could have wilted.
At Wimbledon and Luton, I’d say our overall play merited our victories, but the other two games were different in that our dodgy spells lasted almost the entire ninety minutes!
All four teams we’ve played away from home have been let down to varying degrees by shortcomings at both ends of the pitch and I would suggest that this is the biggest single playing difference between the Championship and League One. In the Championship, you lose if you’re second best for the majority of a game, but in League One that doesn’t always happen – you can get completely outplayed, but many of the teams you’ll play give you a chance by missing pretty straightforward chances at one end and having the occasional defensive cock up at the other to give you hope when there shouldn’t be any.
City play in the whatever it’s called cup on Tuesday at Exeter before a first v second encounter at Cardiff City Stadium next Saturday against Bradford City who inflicted Huddersfield’s third three goal away defeat of the season on them this afternoon.
