Boro frustrated as they are held to Wrexham
Posted by lopo1 on 21/10/2009
It was a frustrating night at the Lamex Stadium last night as Boro were held to a 0-0 draw by Wrexham. It wasn’t the best game you will ever see and with the rain just before the game the pitch was very slick which made it difficult to control for both sides. Boro made one change to Saturday with Chris Beardsley starting in place of Andy Drury who again seems to be struggling to keep fit this season. With Beardsley starting alongside Yemi Odubade and Charlie Griffin in a 3 man attack. Wrexham’s team included veteran’s Frank Sinclair and Gareth Taylor and former Boro man Ashley Westwood was on the bench.
The game started slowly and the fist half chance came to Wrexham as Marc Williams shot from distance straight to Chris Day. Boro went close from Charlie Griffin who found himself on the end of Scott Laird’s cross and after missing his first shot completely his second attempt was smartly saved by Maxwell in the Wrexham goal. Boro continued to press with little end product which told a story of the night from both teams really. Yemi continued to work hard up front but found the conditions difficult and the general feeling was in the first half we lacked width with Brough moving inside from the left most of the time.
Gareth Taylor was then ridiculed by Boro fans for elbowing Scott Laird half hour in. What most annoyed me however was the back chat between Laird and Taylor. As Boro kept pressing Wrexham were a bit more relaxed and seemed to be playing for the draw similar to Salisbury on Saturday. Griffin headed wide and Murphy also had an effort but failed to test Maxwell.
The second half saw Mitchell Cole introduced in place of Chris Beardsley who never really settled on the left. Cole certainly gave more width on the left however he only had a couple of chances to really run at Curtis Obeng however the right back’s pace also kept Cole fairly quiet. It seemed a shame that Cole or Yemi weren’t given a chance to run at Frank Sinclair who looked uncomfortable for most of the evening and when tested we seemed to get success. Plenty of direct balls into the box towards Griffin who was marked extremely well by Mansour Assoumani and dominated most aerial battles. When Cole came on, Brough moved to right wing and I thought did quite well however when Stacy Long is available on the bench and a lot more suited to that position, why does Westley seem to over look the former Ebbsfleet man. I think Long needs a chance of a run in one position instead of wasting time on the bench.
Controversy in the second half was experienced striker Gareth Taylor getting away with not getting a second yellow for blantantly kicking the ball away in frustration when he was flagged offside. Such a stupid thing to do when booked as Mark Roberts experienced not too long ago. Roberts was quick to make his point along with 1600 Boro fans however Taylor escaped any further punishment.
As time went on we continued to look to win the game however Wrexham also grew in confidence as substitute Adrian Cieslewicz tested Ronnie Henry more down the left when Peter Vincenti came onto replace Michael Brough on the right wing. Wrexham started to find more space in between the midfield and defence however never really took advantage of some sloppy play. The best chance of the whole game came to Joel Byrom who missed from 10 yards out on his favoured left foot after a peach of a cross from Yemi Odubade. With the keeper pretty much out of his goal Byrom steered the ball just wide.
Wrexham had a couple of half chances and corners that were defended well and in the end the game petered out into a draw. At the end I felt it was more two points dropped than one gained however we are still very well placed and as long as we can turn more draws into wins I’m still very confident we can challenge Oxford and push on.
Lopo
