Mossley 2 - 3 Nantwich Town

Because there are only so many ways you can write about a defeat that could have been avoided if we'd taken a fraction of our chances and defended a lot better, this is going to brief as I exhausted all of this season's variation on that particular theme after the loss to Curzon Ashton in the last match.

As you may gather from that opening paragraph it was same-o same-o from the Lilywhites as they exited the FA Trophy in the same manner they left three other cup competitions in the preceding eleven days: in a disappointing fashion wondering what might have been if they hadn't been quite so... well, disappointing.

Part of the reason for the employment of the 'd' word is that Nantwich, despite residing in the division immediately above Mossley, didn't look anything special yet still left Seel Park with a win and three goals despite rarely threatening the Lilywhites goal.

I can't remember them mounting a single meaningful attack in the opening 39 minutes leading up to their equaliser. It was a leveller that could have been easily avoided but a player losing his marker, a poor clearance and a heavy enough deflection off a defender to warrant the use of the term o.g. proved sufficient enough to wipe away Mossley's advantage; a lead that had been gained 10 minutes earlier when Sam Hare bundled home a cross from the left wing by Aaron Chalmers.

In reality Mossley should have had the game sewn up before Michael Lennon put the visitors back on level terms but the on-going problem of failing to stick the ball in the back of the net when presented with a golden opportunity meant that the Dabbers always remained in the tie.

This failure to kill off the Cheshire side was brought into sharp focus 7 minutes into the second period when the home defence did its Red Sea impression and parted, allowing Glynn Blackhurst to go ‘Moses’ and break clear of the chasing pack and score. Although Andy Watson cancelled out the lead with a header just after the hour, Nantwich edged ahead again when Rodney Jack finished a great move by smashing the ball past Peter Collinge. It wasn't too dissimilar to a move Mossley had themselves made minutes earlier. The only difference being that whereas Nantwich had found the back of the net, Mossley barely found the arms of the goalkeeper with a weak bobbling shot.

The game should have been forced into a replay in the dying stages of injury time but half of current Mossley's problems were put into a nice nutshell when Mike Fish headed high over the cross bar while unmarked in front of a near open goal. And with it went the Lilywhites hopes of winning a trophy this season.

I know that silverware through winning the league or the play-offs is still a mathematical possibility. Viewing recent games though through some non-rose coloured visual aids suggests the chances of doing so are so small that if you were to read it as a percentage you’d have to go through 10 decimal places before you hit a number that wasn’t a zero.

If the problems currently plaguing the team can be sorted in an expedient manner, a top-half of the table finish isn’t beyond question. If they aren’t… well, the reports on this blog are going to start to look very, very samey indeed. Even more so than usual.