I wasn’t merely hopeful that we were going to see a improved performance over our previous outing, I was as confident as it’s possible to be that we’d not only see a display from the Lilywhites that was a 100 times better than what we saw against Leigh but that we’d win too. Or at the very least manage a draw.
I know that such an optimistic outlook from me of all people will probably come as a surprise to most of you (it did to me!) but I can’t explain why I thought we’d see an improvement. And I think we would have too if someone hadn’t uttered that immortal phrase before kick-off; the one which makes Fate raise its eyebrow and smirk, as if to say “you really want to tempt me, eh?”
Ten minutes before the match was due to start the following words in the following order floated across the Seel Park terraces: “It can’t be as bad as the last match.” Now I’m not a superstitious person but even I at times think there may be something to the term ‘jinxing things’. But then I come to my senses and realise that it’s not some mystical unseen force that’s responsible for Mossley playing badly, it’s Mossley themselves.
And badly is what they played on this very afternoon. I don’t wish to take anything away from Cammell Laird as they did what they had to do very well but their task was made significantly easier by another Mossley display which left the majority of spectators perplexed and peeved.
The only visible silver lining on the afternoon.
One of the most annoying things about the game from a Lilywhites perspective is that, unlike the Leigh match, it didn’t start too badly. It must be said that it wasn’t brilliant either but Mossley just about edged the cagey opening in terms of possession and looked half decent while doing so.
If this ‘golden’ period of stringing three passes together a couple of times had lasted more than 15 minutes we might even have eventually managed to get close enough to our opponents goal to have had a shot (I know – I’m such a dreamer) but it didn’t. Instead it came to a premature end with an unnecessary and errant pass that allowed the visitors a free shot on goal and while it didn’t go in it was the jolt that started to swing the match in Lairds favour.
The uphill task began with a free kick in the 22nd minute. The angle it was at made an attempt at goal look impossible and wasteful but Paul Wheeler curled an incredibly impressive shot round the wall. Peter Collinge did very well to block it but he was unable to prevent Chris Adamson from prodding the loose ball into the net. It would have been nice if someone from the home side other than the prone goalkeeper had reacted to this situation besides the visiting number 5 but it appears you can’t have everything. Not long after Wheeler hit the foot of the post again with another free-kick and the number of chances the visitors were both creating and wasting began to grow at a disturbingly alarming rate.
Mossley weren’t exactly helping their cause by reverting back to the keep sending it down the middle approach which had proved so 'successful' against Leigh four days earlier. It was a decision made all the more inexplicable by the fact that for the first time in a while they had Steve Settle - a bona fide winger - on the pitch and someone who’d made inroads into Lairds back line on the few occasions he’d been presented with the ball in the opening quarter of an hour.
Another goal for the visitors looked only a matter of time in coming and that time was the 34th minute. Its genesis came when Lairds keeper Phil Palethorpe brought a halt to a Mossley attack (a word I use in its loosest, most wishy-washiest sense of the term) by clearing the ball both high and long down the pitch. As it arced its way through the air, over the halfway and deep into the Lilywhites half not one person in a white shirt thought that it might be an idea to perhaps go and get it. Maybe they assumed that as it was heading towards where the left back should be that he would have dealt with it.
Alas the left back wasn’t there as thanks to the unique way we were set out to play he was still our most advanced player due to being required to act as a left sided midfielder and attacker on top of his duties as a defender.
One player did finally decide to go and collect the ball and rather sadly from a Mossley perspective, primarily because he doesn’t play for them, it was Jordan Evason. As you’d expect from a footballer given all the time in the world by the people who were supposed to be tackling him he was able to re-distribute the ball with some precision, in this case straight into the path of Aaron Bowen who with one touch hammered the ball past Collinge from close range. A moment soundtracked by the faint thwack of just under a 100 faces being put into just under a 100 palms.
The immediate aftermath of the goal saw captain Graham Kay substituted, a curious decision given that he was performing no worse than his fellow defenders but a decision that probably had a deeper undercurrent; a thought given extra credence by the exchange of shirt and words that took place while the player and manager were momentarily within the vicinity of one another.
The official report says that the introduction of Aaron Chalmers in his place steadied the ship but it didn’t. Laird might not have scored another goal but that was down to some truly hopeless finishing and incredible goalkeeping rather than any of the holes being filled in the all too porous home defence. If their strikers had been on form – and Collinge off his – then matters could have got a whole lot more embarrassing for the Lilywhites than they already were.
As well as the substitution the second goal also instigated another round of swapping players between positions. Settle, an attacking right winger, was moved to left back while Cavell Coo was moved from that position to fill Settle’s vacated role. I’m sure there was some logic behind the change but what it was seemed to be lost on most people judging by the number of slowly shaking heads on the terraces.
It was all change again after the break as Mossley re-took to the pitch with a 3-5-2 formation. Quite remarkably for such a line-up there was no width to the Lilywhites play at all with Settle becoming an increasingly marginalised figure out by the touchline until he was replaced by Chris Hall on the hour mark.
The alterations to both the formation and personnel had no impact in improving Mossley’s chances and it was the visitors who continued to create and miss chances. However, the more opportunities Cammell Laird spurned the more I began to think - with the strange football logic a lot of supporters have - that Mossley were playing bad enough to get something out of the game and that at least of part of my pre-game prediction would come true. I’ve seen it happen before and I was almost right.
There was 7 minutes left when Mossley scored a goal out of nothing and in a manner that if it had taken place at the top level of the game would have kept Sky Sports News going for days. An all too rare attempt at trying something other than hitting the ball as hard as possible at the forwards saw a through pass finally open the Lairds defence. Kristian Dennis timed his run to perfection and struck the ball past Palethorpe to give Mossley a lifeline they didn’t really deserve.
That doesn’t sound controversial but the goal was initially ruled out by the linesman because Michael Fish was stood in an offside position as the ball was played through. After a prolonged discussion with the referee the assistant conceded that Fish wasn’t interfering with play and withdrew his objection to the goal. What raises the controversy up to a level that would get the media into a frenzied state if it had happened at The Emirates or that place in Trafford is that the referee had acknowledged his assistant’s original decision with the whistle before Kristian Dennis took his shot: the goal was scored when play had been stopped by the official. In the grand scheme of things justice was done in the end in awarding Mossley what was a perfectly legitimate goal but it was one heck of a cock-up on an officiating level.
In the end it turned out to be a cruel goal as it gave a glimmer of hope when there truly was none: a rubber bone thrown to a starving dog. It didn’t lead to an all-out attack in search of an equaliser or even a tiny of spell of pressure which produced something that could be considered a half chance. It merely served to give the score line a more flattering look and make it seem like it was closer than it was.
After choosing the pages of the Oldham Evening Chronicle to lay the blame for the Leigh Genesis defeat firmly at the feet of the players he’d picked, rather than take his share of the blame too for the equally responsible formation and tactics he’d chosen, Mossley’s manager didn’t get quite the reaction he was probably expecting in this game. Everyone else was not quite so surprised (such interviews given to the local media at this level rarely ever have the kind of positive effect you desire) but it was something we can probably put down to being part of the learning curve for a new manager.
What can’t be dismissed quite so easily as part of the learning process though are the tactics, formation and team selections. The obsession with keeping play confined to a narrow corridor down the centre of the pitch has gone from puzzling to infuriating in a very short space of time. There’s so little variation it’s almost as if we’re taking the same approach to tactics as Field Marshal Haig had in Blackadder Goes Forth: “Doing precisely what we have done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do this time.”
The job swap scheme in regards to players being used in unfamiliar positions for short periods of time continues to baffle but not as much as the decision to drop most people’s man of the match for the Leigh game (and one of the few players to emerge from the debacle with any credit at all), Aaron Chalmers, to the bench. Other changes were made to the side but the faces which came in were the ones who went out the last time the side needed freshening up after a poor defeat.
It begs the question as to the point of having a reserve side when there’s no movement between it and the first team, barring the odd exception when Joe Heap gets a few minutes every other month. What incentive is there for the second eleven (who are currently joint top of their division) if they can’t even get a sniff of first team action when the seniors are struggling as badly as they are?
To an outsider it must seem strange to see someone being so frustrated and annoyed at a team that currently sits at a spot no lower than 12th in the league table but compared to some of my fellow supporters I’m positively mellow about the whole thing. The problem is that all we can see at the moment is regression and not progression. We began the season badly yet following a brief spell in December and early January when we had some success while playing good football, it’s to those grim days of August and September we’ve returned to once more. It’s almost as if nothing has been learnt over the past 6 months.
Football being what it is though the next match could see Mossley once produce the impressive style of football we know they're fully capable of having witnessed it 3 months ago. On the other hand, as I mentioned earlier, you can't rule their propensity at times for scraping away at the bottom of the barrel. All I know is that I'll be there to see what happens and bring you a much, much, much shorter report on it. Promise.
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