______________________________________________________________________ Brian Little suffered his first defeat as Wrexham manager, a disappointing end to a week where we seemed to make real progress particularly on our away travels. We would have settled for four points from three away games prior to Little’s arrival, but a trip to one of the league’s newest clubs struggling like ourselves should have brought us more than this underwhelming result. With only Marc Williams in for the injured Eifion Williams Little had kept pretty much the same team that had done so well at Bury in midweek. He would admit after the game that his faith in the same set of players for consecutive games was to be our undoing. The home team’s pitch wasn’t in the best condition with puddles of water holding the ball up in places. That is no excuse though for Dagenham, who had not won at home for three months prior to this game, acquitting themselves as the better side after the resolve we’d shown in the weeks previous away games. The game got off to a slow start with neither side offering much in attack. Dagenham took the lead mid-way through the first half courtesy of a Steve Evans own goal. The centre-half had got in front of a Dagenham forward to cut out a cross but instead only succeeded in turning the ball past Anthony Williams. For the rest of the half Wrexham continued to offer little in a performance reminiscent of so many others before Little arrived. At half-time Wes Baynes was sacrificed for the more attacking Sam Aiston as we switched to 4-4-2 with Pejic moving to right-back. Despite Dagenham creating a few more chances, the change brought a slight improvement as we went in search of an equaliser. The Daggers keeper, the former Welsh international and Wrexham fan, Tony Roberts was in good form however stopping attempts from Roberts and Proctor. Our attack was bolstered by the introduction of Done and Johnson as the game neared it’s close. Garrett fired a long-range shot just wide following a corner that had been cleared. Any thoughts of taking something from the game were ended when we lost the ball in midfield with just over five minutes to go. The Daggers sub Ben Strevens picked it up and hit a spectacular long-range goal to give the home side a two-goal cushion. The final scoreline was made worse when another Dagenham sub, Jamie Taylor introduced in the final minute of normal time, scored with a low shot that perhaps Williams could have done better with. A 3-0 defeat away to one of our relegation rivals, a team that we should really be expected to beat no matter what the circumstances, is something that we have become accustomed to in recent years. It is now up to Brian Little to find a solution to this problem we’ve developed when we play at sides such as Accrington and Dagenham, hopefully sooner rather than later. One of the frustrating aspects of the defeat for the manager is that the players showed they are perfectly capable at Rochdale and Bury. They just need to be more consistent, beginning with the home game against Brentford next week.
______________________________________________________________________ Brian Little’s first victory as Wrexham manager lifted us out of the relegation zone ensuring that Wrexham fans can breathe a sigh of relief, verging on joy. We’re unbeaten in the league over the last four games, and in three of those games we’ve kept clean sheets. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s our best form all season. After travelling to Rochdale on Saturday we travelled just a bit further to Dale’s local rivals Bury for this midweek game. Young Neil Taylor was rested as Valentine came back into the side but Little was also forced to make two other changes as a result of a virus sweeping through the squad. Out went Done and Aiston, in came Garrett and Eifion Williams. Wrexham started the game positively well on top. Our new manager seems to have conjured similar levels of commitment from the players that we saw at the back end of last season. We looked like winning every ball and attacked well. Bury seemed poor, looking similar to Wrexham prior to Little’s arrival. After just half an hour we opened the scoring through Eifion Williams. Garrett had hit the ball long and Bury’s goalkeeper Jim Provett totally misjudged it while Eifion rounded him to head us into the lead. It was Eifion’s first goal for us since pre-season which is ironic given his prolific reputation for goal-scoring throughout his career. However there are reasons for the drought but now it has ended Eifion and Wrexham fans will hope that there’s many more to come. Unfortunately Eifion appeared to injure himself in celebrating the goal and was immediately replaced by Marc Williams. Just our luck, but we kept going as the stronger side until half-time with Bury offering very little. The Shakers managed to up their game a little at the beginning of the second period. There was a slight scare when Anthony Williams didn’t come to collect a ball that should have been his, but the situation was rescued with Steve Evans cutting out Andy Bishop’s shot. From the resulting corner Ben Futcher’s header hit the side netting but for a brief second it seemed as if the ball had gone in! Once again our defence were untroubled for most of the game. Marc Williams had our best chance of the second half with a header from less than six yards being saved by Provett. We generally soaked up any Bury pressure before breaking forward as the game wore on. To help with this Josh Johnson was introduced in place of Proctor and the clock ran down. When the final whistle went the 500+ Wrexham fans that had travelled to Bury and really got behind the side all night could really celebrate this hard earned victory. Likewise on the Wrexham bench Brian Little, Brian Carey, and Mel Pejic appeared to be celebrating just as much! We’ve had to wait for what seems like an age for this victory so we are well entitled to celebrate. We can’t get too carried away but an away victory and a clean sheet for anyone is a good result. Since Little’s arrived the performances and results have improved markedly and now moved us up to 20th in the table. We’d have taken that finish at the end of the season just a few weeks ago. Now you sense that many fans are setting their ambitions for the season a little bit higher, but there’s a long way to go yet…
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Rory Sheehan |
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