Match Report |
Wrexham’s away from returned to its
norm for this season with a comprehensive 4-0 defeat at Boston, who
started the day in the relegation zone, and this means that Wrexham have
only picked up one point this week against two teams who were second and third
bottom of the league.
The two previous away games at Scunthorpe and Torquay showed encouraging
signs that Wrexham were turning the corner away from the Racecourse but
the third away game in the week took its toll on a Wrexham team that
has clocked over 1,000 miles on the road in a week.
The day got off to a bad start when Mark Jones, who had overcome his
illness, injured his knee in the warm up and this forced Denis Smith
into changing his named starting line up with Levi Mackin starting in
Jones’ place.
Boston enjoyed the best of the opening exchanges and looked to be in a
promising position in the open minute until the offside flag went up.
The most noticeable incident after this came in the tenth minute when
Shaun Pejic had to deal with a ball in from the left.
Josh Johnson then conceded a free kick and after Wrexham dealt with the
initial ball, Ingham required two attempts to collect the second cross
in.
Wrexham’s best chance came from the boot of Michael Ingham when one of
his long clearances forward was within inches of embarrassing his
opposite number, former Wrexham keeper Andy Marriott, after he was
deceived by the bounce.
Wrexham almost fashioned a chance from open play but had to settle for a
corner when Johnson’s cross was turned behind by the Boston defence with
Smith and Llewellyn in threatening positions. Marriott punched the
corner clear but Boston conceded a free kick for a foul on Johnson but this
set play was uncharacteristically wasted by Ferguson.
Boston threatened at the other end when Canoville picked out Broughton
in the box but his header down to Green was wasted by the front man as
he shot over. Wrexham then forced their second corner of the game but
after this was cleared Boston opened the scoring in the twenty second
minute
The Wrexham defence were caught out when Josh Johnson drifted over to the
right flank and this left acres of space on the left. Boston took full
advantage of this as Elding converted from close range after Canoville
had time and space to measure his cross into the six yard box.
It got worse for Wrexham when Steve Evans was shown a red card after he
reacted to a late challenge on him by Brunt and the Wrexham defender got
his marching orders for the second time this season after he lashed out with his feet in
retaliation to the challenge on him. Broughton also earned a caution for
the initial foul on Evans.
All this came in the space of a disastrous ninety seconds for Wrexham
who had to reshuffle with Danny Williams dropping back into defence and
Chris Llewellyn adding the extra man in midfield with Wrexham now
adopting a 4-4-1 formation.
Boston again threatened when Wrexham failed to cut the ball into the box
but Ingham pulled off a good save from Drew Broughton but the offside
flag had already been raised.
With a third of the game gone, Wrexham were struggling in having any
shots on goal with the closest they came was from one of Ingham’s
clearances that almost caught out Andy Marriott in the Boston goal.
Wrexham were leading the corner count and made it 3-0 when Marriott was
unable to prevent a clearance from going out of play but Danny Williams
was penalised for pushing when Ferguson delivered the ball into the box.
Wrexham had a lucky escape with five minutes of the half left when slack marking
allowed two Boston players in space to convert what looked like a second
goal but the ball evaded both Rowson and Elding at the back post.
Wrexham were even luckier moments later when Broughton found himself
clean through on goal. Pejic did well chasing back to narrow down
Broughton’s angle and his chip over Ingham rebounded back off the bar
and the ball bounced kindly for Wrexham, as Green just missed out on the
rebound.
Wrexham managed to hold out through the three minutes of injury time
with Kennedy going the closest to extended Boston’s lead when he fired
over whilst under pressure from Shaun Pejic.
Wrexham started the second half with the same personnel but Denis Smith
took the opportunity during the break to switch formations to 3-4-2 and
this almost paid dividends after they forced an early free kick but this
was cleared by the Boston defence.
The optimism was short lived as Boston doubled their advantage four
minutes after the restart although Broughton looked yards offside when
he headed in from Green’s cross from the left.
Wrexham’s only shot on goal from open play came after Llewellyn had
flicked the ball over his head to enable him to break clear from his
marker but Kevin Smith was only able to shot straight at Marriott from
Llewellyn’s cross.
With quarter of an hour gone, Denis Smith made a double substitution
with Juan Ugarte and Neil Roberts replacing Kevin Smith and Josh
Johnson. Boston also took this as an opportunity to make change with Lee
Canoville being replaced by Jamie Clarke.
It should have been 3-0 soon after when Kennedy found himself in space
but he mis hit his cross when Broughton was free in the box and Ingham
made a comfortable save. It was almost three when the flag stayed down
as Kennedy advanced into the area but he shot wide when in a good
position.
Chris Llewellyn ended up in the book midway through the second half for
a lunging foul but the game was over in the sixty ninth minute when
Broughton got his second and Boston’s third of the afternoon. It
certainly was a day to forget for Wrexham when two players went for the
same ball and this allowed Broughton to have a free shot a goal that was
deflected past Ingham off Danny Williams.
With the game petering out to a finish, Tony Elding made it 4-0 after
Wrexham were not alive to a short corner played to Rawson. After
collecting the ball, Rawson curled it in right footed for Elding to
glance in his second of the afternoon past Ingham.
It was almost five when Green got in behind Roche but he curled his
effort wide of Ingham’s goal and thankfully referee Dean Whisedale
brought the game to an end. |
Match Reaction |
Denis Smith: "I will say the squad we have is one
capable of being towards the top end of the table. When we went down to 10
men we wanted to try to keep things tight and hopefully sneak a goal at the
other end. But their second goal killed off the plans we had - although I
had a serious issue about it because their scorer looked well offside."
[Source:
TEAMtalk] |
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Match Notes |
Venue |
Yorke Street |
Attendance |
1,706 |
Half Time |
Boston United 1 Wrexham 0 |
Referee |
Dean Whitestone |
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