Originally Posted by Phil Whalley
When you're a bit ring rusty, Stevenage are the last team you want to play. Westley may have left the building, but his methods and mentality remain. Stevenage were in Stanley's faces from the off, boosted by a fortunate early goal. Joe lost an aerial duel with their giant no.31, the ball fell kindly for a Stevenage player to lash a shot goalbound, Mooney parried it out straight onto the knee of an onrushing Stevenage player and in it went.
The rest of the first half was a desperate affair for the Reds. Whenever an individual got the ball there were two or three home players on them barely before they could look up and make a pass. This quickly led to indecision and nervousness, with misplaced passes aplenty and an unsettlng amount of bickering among the Stanley players. That said, in the midst of all this, the lads produced the best move of the half, culminating in a Stanley player flashing the ball home from a low right-wing cross, but it was ruled out for offside.
Half-time saw Coley with a task on his hands, and as the second-half began to unfold, it wasn't immediately apparent that he had solved the problem. From the stands, it seemed clear that high balls lumped up to the heroic Kee, or crosses from the industrious Mingoia, were not going to cause such a muscular defence too many problems. We had to play through them. They had some issues at the back. Their number 4 was laughably unathletic, ripe for playing around. But Stevenage were still working hard, pulling men behind the ball and not giving us a chance to play.
In the end, Coley played an adventurous card, going three at the back and bringing on Gornell and McCarten. The latter immediately made an impact, his ability to dribble through challenges almost rewarded with an audacious goal as he jinked past three defenders before leathering a shot into the side-netting. But we did start to force Stevenage ever deeper, with Conneely testing Day with a stinging shot from the edge of the box. The breakthrough was dependent, however, on a contentious refereeing decision. McConville, on one of his more anonymous afternoons, angled a cross for the back post but instead found a defender leaping in the way who was then adjudged to have handled inside the box. Kee stepped up and sealed his man of the match performance with a calm pen to the keeper's left as Day dived to his right.
If anyone was going to nick it at this point it was us, as Stevenage's hard-pressing game caught up with them, but we were glad of the point, as it looked unlikely for most of the game that we were going to leave with anything, apart from a renewed dislike of this godforsaken place. Whatever happens, I said to Carice sitting next to me, at least we don't live here.
So raise a glass tonight to Billy Kee, he was momentous throughout, the only player to consistently get the better of his markers. You earned your wage today Billy. As for the team, they weren't at their flowing best, but they kept going and emerged from a difficult battle with a point.
There's a quote from Diego Simeone in the paper today about how he sees his side: "We see ourselves reflected in society, in people who have to fight daily to keep going. As soon as we stop fighting, we have no chance."
Sums us up nicely, I'd say, and no more so than today.
Merry Christmas!
Phil
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