Chesham United (0) 0
Tonbridge Angels (0) 1 Botti 68
Attendance:
Admission: Pass
Mileage: 184/5,862
New Ground: 389
Business as usual was the message from chair, Sophie Purves, echoed by Jay Saunders and delivered by his squad who put in a solid performance at Chesham United.
One might say it wasn’t quite business as usual as wins on the road this season have been hard come by, but this fourth win propelled the Angels back into the top half of the table as the Angels seek a good end to the season to send Jay on to pastures new with a sense of satisfaction of a job well done.
It was a cold evening for Tonbridge Angels’ first-ever visit to The Meadow and the manager made four changes from the starting XI that had performed admirably but without reward against Torquay United. Into the line-up came Bailey Akehurst, Mo Dabre, Nazir Bakrin and Brody Peart for Taylor Maloney, Gianluca Botti, Jack Wood, who took places on the bench, and Mikey Berry, who was unavailable following his injury on Saturday.
Ultimately, it has to be admitted that this was not a classic and, at times, had a real end-of-season feel to it as a difficult pitch never lent itself to football of any great quality. But the Angels were gritty and determined when they needed to be in defence and found the one bit of quality that was needed to win the game when Botti converted from close range on 68 minutes.
Jay said in this post-match interview: “This is a difficult place to come on a Tuesday night after Saturday’s efforts. The pitch was very difficult which meant we set up very different and had a different game plan to Torquay and had to play a different way but the boys carried it out excellently and I thought there were some excellent displays and I’m really pleased we have got the win.”
Both sides were looking to put a three game run without a win behind them, so an early goal would give confidence to whoever might have scored it, and that could well have been the home side as Matt Rowley was forced to make a brilliant save after less than two minutes after a shot came in from close range following a corner.
The game then got bogged down in the middle of the park with neither side particularly taking control. Bailey Akehurst fired in a shot that cleared the bar and Rowley was pressed into action again saving from Samson Esan.
The big chance of the half fell to the home side in the last couple of minutes with Nathan Minhas blazing over when well placed.
Tonbridge took the on 68 minutes when a free kick sent to the far post by Sean Shields was headed back across goal by Jamie Fielding, a defender got his feet in a tangle in attempting to clear and, as the ball ran loose, Botti, on as a substitute for Peart, was on hand to tuck home from around six yards.
Despite there being 20 minutes plus to play out, the Angels did this with relative ease, the only scare being a header deep into added time from goalkeeper Ben Goode, who had ventured forward for a corner.
Dabre was sprinting clear in the last seconds only to pull up with what initially looked like a recurrence of his hamstring injury but rather was said to be only cramp.
Jay added: “The boys, overall, deserved it. We worked really hard, it was not the prettiest of games to watch but we knew we had to play the conditions and play percentages and for large parts of the game we did that very well. We’ve been up and around the top 10 all season and I don’t want us to see us fall away because the boys deserve more, as do the supporters.”
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