Thanks again to Rory Sheehan who will be providing match reports and feature articles
Wrexham 2 Lewes 0
The visit of the BSP’s bottom of the table club Lewes gave Wrexham the perfect chance to bounce back from their mid-week FA Cup embarrassment. The visitors from the South Coast had similarly been dumped out of the Cup by minnows Leiston during the week.
Dean Saunders made numerous changes for the game. Jefferson Louis returned in place of young Obi Anoruo and Mike Williams replaced Steve Evans at centre-half. Two teenage loan signings from the Premiership also made their debuts: Stoke City’s Belgian Ritchie De Laet played at right-back and Manchester City’s Cypriot midfielder Angelos Tsiaklis partnered Mackin in midfield ahead of Kearney. Shaun Whalley also started.
This was a scrappy game from start to finish and much credit should go to Lewes who provided a sterner test than many might have anticipated. The early action was mainly restricted to the battle in the middle of the park.
Generally it was a case of waiting to see if Wrexham succeed in breaking the Lewes resolve where they failed against Eastwood. For the away side, Stefan Cox looked a lively handful when he had the ball.
Wrexham took the lead after nearly 20 minutes when a Wes Baynes corner picked out Ashley Westwood whose thumping header beat Lewes goalkeeper Rikki Banks. Whalley helped it over the line, but it was Westwood’s to claim his first Wrexham goal.
Despite having most of the play from then on Wrexham failed to increase their advantage. Mackin and Tsiaklis toiled in midfield, as did Louis and Marc Williams up front.
In defence and going forward De Laet looked very impressive, an early candidate for ‘Man of the Match’. Tall, quick, strong in the challenge and not afraid to go forward to put in a good cross or take an impressively long throw (typical of his Stoke colleague Rory Delap) he was winning the Racecourse faithful over.
The second-half was much like the first with little to get excited about. When Lewes midfielder Joseph Tabiri was sent off for a second booking with 25 minutes to go there was hope that the game would open up more.
From the free-kick Tabiri gave away Wrexham won a corner which supplied Mike Williams an opportunity to head home convincingly his second senior goal.
Still the quality of the football on show did not improve but 10 men Lewes were never going to come back into the game. A great lay-off from Louis later on provided Marc Williams with a good strike at goal, well thwarted by Banks.
Silvio Spann appeared as a late substitute but it was job done, another 3 points in the bag for Wrexham.
Wrexham have now won every BSP game since the arrival of Saunders, and with 4 consecutive wins are putting together a convincing run of form, if not a convincing set of performances.
If you ignore the FA Cup disappointment, we appear to be on the up…
Categories :
Archives