Wed Jan 01, 2014 7:19 pm
What a satisfying win that was. Our failure to come back from behind and win prior to today may well have proved a bit of a monkey in our backs before long, so it was great to lay that one to rest. Not only that, but we beat a side who were on a really strong run, and will undoubtedly take points off the other sides in and around the playoff places between now and the end of the season.
Smith might be able to take some credit for changing things at half time, but all he was really doing at that point was repairing the damage he'd done by not playing Westcarr from the start. Whether he's playing well or not, we spend longer in the opposition's half when Westcarr plays, and that in itself makes him a must-start. It was the right decision to take Baxendale out, as he'd had another game where pretty much every pass he played went to one of them.
The first 20 minutes looked like men against boys - just as it looked when we played Preston and Coventry earlier this season. They looked like they wanted it more than us, and we gave them nothing to worry about at the back. Hewitt's movement was woeful and I doubt their centre halves will have had an easier 45 minutes this season. Thankfully, we started finding Sawyers in space a lot more towards the end of the half, which at least stopped the bombardment our back four had been getting going into half time.
The second half was a complete turnaround, with Westcarr at the heart of pretty much everything we did going forward. Suddenly James Chambers kept finding acres of space wide on the right, Sawyers started pulling their midfield all over the place, and we attacked with some kind of purpose. I felt the penalty decision was a bit on the soft side, but Butler had been blatantly manhandled at every set piece up to then, so we were certainly due a decision in our favour.
From then on, we had fire in our bellies, the crowd were right behind the players, and we looked threatening every time we went forward. Chambers scored from the move of the match and could have had another, Taylor drilled one inches wide, and Lalkovic had a shot well saved. I still felt Hewitt looked way out of his depth but the rest of our attacking players did just about enough to compensate.
The way we ground things out towards the end was pleasing. This wasn't a Peterborough-esque display where we were so dominant that they didn't have an answer, but was a bit more of a battle - the sort of game we've had a tendency to drop points from previously. With other results going our way, we're in a really good position going into two more winnable games in a couple of weeks' time.
A good day (or 45 minutes) at the office. We still need another striker though.