Sorry Sorry Sorry

Ossett Town 3 Mossley 2

Well who is the sorry aimed at. First, aplogies for lack of updates recently. For those that know me personally, the week of the Prescot game left me with no time as Liam had his shoulder surgery that week. During last week, I went away to the Lakes so I didn't attend the two cup wins. Maybe that is the next sorry as I have only missed 3 games this season and guess what? Yes, Mossley always win when I'm not there!! Oh the dilemmas of life.

Back to the theme of sorry and what a catastrophic performance I returned to on Saturday. The first half was absolutely awful and Danny Trueman has taken a lot of criticism recently but without him the game would have been out of sight by half time as he pulled off two outstanding saves. Carl Fothergill almost had the penalty area to himself to net a simple opener. Danny Ryan netted a second just before the break, and there was still time for one of the misses of the season. It quite simply could have been 5-0 at the break and in reality, Ossett aren't a great side, but they play effectively to their strengths. I'm not actually sure what our strengths are and certainly we don't seem capable of playing to them. I think really playing the ball on the floor may be our strength but it doesn't seem to happen often enough.

The second half was pretty dire and in fact the kids lick around game on the other pitch was more entertaining. The game changed when Kirk Wheeler pressed the self destruct button. He must have wanted an early bath as there were 2 or 3 instances after receiving a yellow card that he displayed different forms of petulance. The ref (as poor as he was) decided enough was enough and after stopping Mossley taking a quick throw he saw red. (Well 2 yellows really)

An excellent cross from Lee Shillito saw substitute Turley halve the deficit and amazingly they equalized when a stunning drive by Furnival from outside the box almost broke the net. At this point there only seemed to be one winner but the ref had other ideas. Yes I know I'm biased but the tackle looked fair from Ward, but the man in black had other ideas, and the resulting penalty saw another disastrous finish to a game. (Prescot, Whitby..... How many more times will this happen?)

Despite the fightback, a reality check tells you that Mossley got what they deserved from this game, and coupled with other results we are now in the relegation zone. We need a wake up call unless we want to end up having another bash at being Division One champions. Fans have said for a while that there are worse sides than us in this division, but while we have been losing points at an alarming rate, some of these sides have gone past us. No midweek fixture may give the management a time to sort out some problems, but this will become apparent after 3:00 on Saturday, The FA Trophy tie will be a tricky test as Cammell Laird are in effect only a few places below us as they are riding high in Division 1. This game will be a definite banana skin, so hopefully the form of the previous Trophy game will return. Maybe I should go back to the Lakes!!!!