Crawley
Pittman (18, 80), Hall (28), Joseph-Dubois (29,
85)
6
York
City
Woolford (27)
1
Blue Square Prmier - 5th
April 2008
At Broadfield Stadium - Att 862 (161 York)
Report
Easily the worst display under Colin
Walker's stewardship ended in a thrashing for City. Having
started brightly with nice passing and movement, City conceded
against the run of play then, in a madcap few minutes, got themselves
back into it before chucking it away. With the same side that
played so brightly against Stevenage on display again, it made
the eventual capitulation all the harder to understand.
The first quarter-hour was City's, although Pierre Joseph-Dubois
gave notice of his intentions with a shot that Josh Mimms saved
at his near post. For all the neat passing through midfield,
there was little by way of shooting opportunities, though Anthony
Lloyd's shot was deflected, looping narrowly over the bar.
Despite that, City looked able to keep Crawley at arm's length
until the old failings at set pieces reared their ugly heads.
A corner wasn't cleared properly, seeming to ricochet off Stuart
Elliott and into the path of Jon-Paul Pittman - who made
a lively front two with Joseph-Dubois - who nodded it past the
stranded Mimms.
City got back into it ten minutes later after a moment of comedic
goalkeeping. Ashley Bayes completely missed Darren Craddock's
through ball for Martyn
Woolford. Keeping his composure, Woolford tucked the loose
ball home as the defence tried desperately to get back. Barely
two minutes later, David
McGurk upended Pittman as Crawley countered. It looked to
be well inside the box to most observers, but the referee, Andrew
Halliday, gave it as a free kick, a ball's width outside the
box. The kick from Hall seemed relatively harmless, but it went
past the wall and into the bottom corner, calling into questioning
the positioning of both wall and goalkeeper. With City still
contemplating what went wrong, it got worse as Danny
Parslow, normally so assured, got caught in possession,
leaving Joseph-Dubois with a clear run to goal and he slotted
it under the advancing Mimms for 3-1.
From then on, City were all but done as an attacking force,
though Elliott's shot from a knock-down briefly had people wondering
if it would trouble Bayes. It didn't, though Hall beat Mimms
with a fierce effort that came crashing back off the bar and
Pittman forced the young keeper into a save at his near post.
Bringing off Lloyd for Onome
Sodje, City switched to a 4-4-2 for the second half. Momentarily,
it seemed to have an effect with Elliott's deflected shot saved
and Sodje dithering for far too long when well placed. The better
chances continued to come from Crawley, with Jospeh-Dubois's
spin-and-hit too close to Mimms to extend their lead as the
game descended into a bit of a foul-a-thon. Not that the referee
needed as excuse to blow his whistle as he was a tad pedantic
at the best of times, but City's frustration grew and the foul
level went up accordingly.
With little over ten minutes remaining, any last vestige of
City's defence disappeared. A rare City attack was followed
by a swift counter. The ball was switched wide for Pittman and,
one-on-one with Mimms, he tucked it away. Joseph-Dubois skinned
Ben Purkiss - now playing left-back and struggling to commit
himself to tackles on his left side - and squared it for Hall,
but Craddock
- the one City player to come out with anything like credit
from his display - tackled back well and cleared. It was mere
respite and Hall's 30-yard piledriver had Mimms beaten all ends
up. It came back off the post into Joseph-Dubois's path and
he made no mistake to make it five.
City were gone and Crawley made it a round half dozen as Hall
floated a corner onto the head of substitute Jamie Cook who
was unmarked six yards out and made no mistake.
This was embarrassing. City were taken apart by a side that
had lost their four previous games on the bounce.There's precious
little to say in defence of City apart from that everyone should
apologise to Darren Craddock before getting stuck in to some
very hard work starting in the wee hours of Sunday morning.
Ref: A Halliday
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