It wasn’t the best match you will ever see down at Broadhall Way, but we did enough to secure the three points against a poor Chester side. Westley named a similar team to what started on Saturday against Forest Green, with Mitchell Cole, David Bridges and Charlie Griffin again left out. Chester named Nick Chadwick up front alongside former Cambridge United striker Mark Beesley. Former Doncaster defender Tim Ryan captained the side.
The first half was a fairly boring spectacle. Both sides didn’t create much going forward, although I felt Boro played some nice stuff in the first half without ever looking threatening going forward. The pace of Yemi Odubade on the flanks was an outlet the team tried to exploit, but to Chester’s credit they handled him quite well this evening. Chris Beardsley again was disappointing up front. He didn’t seem to win much in the air and lost possession of the ball too often. Ryan had him in his pocket for the majority of the match.
It was the visitors who had the first serious effort on goal, when Sean Kelly connected to a free-kick, but his effort hit the post and was cleared away. It would of been harsh on Boro, who were looking comfortable up until then. The two teams continued to cancel each other out as the half went on, but Boro got the decisive opening goal when Yemi Odubade volleyed in from 10 yards. It was a good finish from the former Oxford man, who has impressed in recent weeks. For me, Yemi was man of the match tonight because of his work rate alone. He chased everything down and got back to defend when he had to. His goal was his reward for a good night’s work.
Graham Westley made one of the strangest tactical decisions at half time. Lee Boylan was replaced by John Ashton. Ashton moved to right back while Ronnie Henry came in centre midfield. I didn’t understand the decision at all as just the one change had totally disrupted the Stevenage side. There were only about 4 players on the field in the same position as they started. Chester couldn’t take advantage of this though and the second half was much like the first. Chester didn’t really ever threaten Chris Day’s goal and Boro didn’t create many chances. The game was fairly scrappy and the wet and windy weather wasn’t helping the standard of football either.
David Bridges came on after an hour to replace Darren Murphy, who again was stupidly booked earlier in the half. Murphy has got to get these silly bookings out of his game sooner rather than later. I don’t mind him as a player because I think he gives the midfield a more physical presence which is needed in some games. Bridges came on and within 5 minutes Boro had doubled their lead. Mark Roberts finished well after the visitors had failed to clear Andy Drury’s corner. Game over.
The game petered out after Roberts’ goal and Boro went on to win the game with relative ease. It’s a good win especially as Oxford did what we did at the weekend and beat Forest Green at The New Lawn. 5 points remains the gap, with the leaders in the FA Cup this coming weekend. If we beat Salisbury we will go to within 2 points of Wilder’s side, although they will have the game in hand. Boro’s win tonight also puts us now 4 points clear of 3rd place York who have played 1 game more than ourselves and with Kettering being beaten at home again tonight, they are now 6 points away from us.




If the Boro players weren’t already up for the FA Cup first round replay against Port Vale tomorrow night, they will be now after Vale captain Tommy Fraser’s
With nothing else to do last night, I decided to pop over to watch the MK Dons v Northampton in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy. Although MK impressed me in the first half, the game overall was quite poor and Northampton in particular looked terrible. After seeing both Port Vale and Northampton in the last few days I can safely say that if we do go up to League 2, we won’t come down.