By Liam Price, photos by Jonathan White
Mossley claimed a closely fought three points with a 2-1 win at Nantwich Town.
There was one Nantwich change to the starting XI that beat City of Liverpool 8-2, with Byron Harrison replacing Alex Panter.
Perry Bircumshaw, on the day of his 100th Nantwich appearance, fired over the bar early on.
A better opening came when Kai Evans’ cross found Kofi Moore close to goal, he made decent contact with it but Finley Madigan just about managed to keep it out but it took a couple of attempts.
It was the visitors took the lead in the 7th minute. Their first real move came down the right and a cross managed to reach Michael Brewster who finished straightforwardly in the middle of the box in an unacceptable amount of space.
In the reverse game Mossley scored after 5 minutes and now 7 in this one; immediately a big ask to turn this around against what before the game was the second best defence in the league.
The pattern was set, only broken by a few blocked shots here and there, one from Tom Pratt and one from Teddy Lavelle for Mossley.
Evans shot straight at Madigan, then in an end-to-end moment Pratt sliced wide.
Top scorer for Mossley Mason Fawns had a quiet day in front of goal in credit to the Dabbers defence, screwing one shot over the bar about 20 minutes in.
But the pattern mentioned generally was there to see from early on. Nantwich, for a couple of years and managers now, struggle to play against well organised teams, which Mossley certainly were.
The warning signs blare like a foghorn on the horizon of an ailing ship; when the full backs can’t get into the game the ball generally ends at the feet of the centre backs in posession, today Troy Bourne and Joe Bunney. They look for options to pass to but there aren’t any good ones. The arms go up in frustration. Then the ball gets launched long to no one in particular. And repeat ad nauseaum. When you see this start to happen you know, more often than not, it’s going to be a bad day for Nantwich.
Despite this, there were chances for Nantwich to be at least level that came from when they played the football that suits them better. The Moore and Pratt ones were more half chances, but an Evans shot from distance that flashed wide and a smart toe poke from Harrison that narrowly missed the post were stronger opportunities.
The Dabbers were denied what they felt was a penalty for a foul on Kai Evans after he’d got the wrong side of his man in the box. Jon Moran afterwards said it was either a penalty or a corner; a goal kick was given.
Generally it felt as if the October game was being replayed almost scene-for-scene here, but the second half contained several twists to change this story.
There was a worrying 3v2 in favour of Mossley early in that second period, but Wealth Dasilva-Olajide blasted over the bar to waste the chance.
A significant moment came on 58 minutes when Nantwich captain Troy Bourne was shown a straight red after a 50/50 challenge in the centre. Moran afterwards had no complaints and probably had a better view of it than the referee did. That was the Bourne of last season who made that challenge, a real shame as the discipline and quality had been much better from the captain this campaign.
The home crowd had it in for the officials from early on, with little good reason. That’s another sign you can count on when Nantwich aren’t playing well at the Swansway, it must be the ref’s fault rather than the team’s.
However misplaced the sense of injustice was here, it did seem to bleed into the 10 men’s performance and fire them up to eventually grab a deserved equaliser.
Before that, Evans pulled a shot wide off his weaker left foot.
It was 1-1 on 67 minutes. Tom Pratt found himself in acres of space in the box and finished comfortably. There was a question of offside but the flag stayed down and even with the question mark over it you couldn’t argue it hadn’t been coming.
However, just 16 seconds after the subsequent kick off it was 2-1 to Mossley. Guillherme Baltazar tapped in at the far post from a Fawns cross to stun the buoyant home supporters into silence. Baltazar had run James Melhado and the rest of the Nantwich defence ragged throughout and was worthy of the goal.
In the build up a loose arm caught Bircumshaw in the face as he challenged in the air, leaving him with a black eye. The Mossley player only had eyes for the ball but with that outcome arguably the biggest mistake the ref made in the game was one the crowd didn’t shout for at all.
Former Dabber Eric Yahaya found himself 1v1 with Ben Garratt but dragged his shot wide as Garratt did enough to put him off.
Jack Marrow forced Garratt into an easier bit of goalkeeping with a weak shot.
Nantwich’s best chance to get a second equaliser fell to sub Callum Saunders. A lovely diagonal ball was headed down by Pratt but Saunders didn’t catch his shot properly and Madigan was able to hold.
Obua Mugulula and Yahaya again didn’t test Garratt as the away side found joy on the counter late on.
Alex Panter slashed a half decent chance wide but it was a difficult angle to score from. He then headed straight at Madigan with the last kick of the game.
Realistically, after this Nantwich must now start planning for another season in the NPL West. What that looks like remains to be seen, but two attempts to get out of a league too many naively thought would be easy to get out of look to have fallen short of even a play-off spot.
Teams
Nantwich Town: Ben Garratt, James Melhado, Perry Bircumshaw, Kelvin Mellor, Troy Bourne (C), Joe Bunney, Kofi Moore (Matty Tweedley, 59), Joe Robbins (Callum Saunders, 73), Byron Harrison (Alex Panter, 77), Tom Pratt, Kai Evans
Subs not used: Darren Thornton, Jon Moran
Goal: Pratt (67)
Red card: Bourne (58)
Mossley AFC: Finley Madigan, Jack Marrow, Adam Sherratt, Mark Lees (C), Mateusz Kardacz, Teddy Lavelle, Bailey Marsden, Michael Brewster, Wealth Dasilva-Olajide (Eric Yahaya, 66), Guillherme Baltazar (Obua Mugalula, 79)
Goals: Brewster (7), Baltazar (68)
Attendance: 531