Blues Slump to Home Defeat

Leek’s stuttering season continued as the Blues fell to their second defeat of the campaign. This time it was Runcorn Linnets who ran out the victors as a sublime strike from Stuart Crilly on the stroke of half-time was enough to settle the game. Leek’s temporary home at the Silverlands is most definitely not paved with gold

Leek started brightly in a dour contest that saw few pieces of genuine goalmouth action and in which the defences reigned supreme. But a wriggly run from Jack Wakefield showed attacking promise for the Blues only for the the visiting defender to get in a vital block.

There were a couple of probing runs from Will Saxon but the ensuing crosses failed to pick out a man in blue and when Leek did get into promising positions good defensive work meant that the efforts on goal were usually from a tight angle and Joe Young – a young England keeper on loan from Wolves – had the positional nous to make the stops at his near post look comparatively simple.

Runcorn were playing a high pressing game to good effect and, with Leek’s passing not always at its best, looked good on the breakaway but the excellent defensive partnership of Ollie Harrison and Scott Wara meant that Danny Roberts was successfully shielded throughout the majority of the first period.

With the half-time whistle fast approaching the spectators were already debating which team had enjoyed the better half. That argument was ended when Linnets scored the decisive goal. Once again, the ball was lost but this time Runcorn had an overload of players. The ball was played along the eighteen-yard line to Crilly who steadied himself before curling his shot beyond Roberts and into the bottom corner.

Any Leek hopes that their opponents’ intense defending would see them tire in the latter stages proved unfounded as their excellent hard-working performance saw them easily defy Leek’s huffing and puffing. Dan Trickett-Smith powered wide and Matt Bell did well to win the ball but his off-balance effort was too high. In fact, Runcorn should have doubled the victory margin as the game neared its end. Oladapo Olawareju got clear but put his attempt wide with the goal at his mercy.

Possibly even worse than the result was the fact that two more players were lost due to injury with Billy Reeves being replaced early and Tim Grice pulling up with a groin injury. The only bright spot of the evening for a Leek supporter was probably the sight of Rob Stevenson – absent so far due to a back problem- taking part in the pre-match warm-up. How Leek need him back quickly.

A reflective Neil Baker spoke exclusively to Moorlands Radio and said” We were good in the first half but not great. We are certainly not prolific. We are relying too much on certain people. We need a contribution from others and obviously the goal just before half-time deflated us. Credit to Runcorn I thought they were really well-organised and were very quick on the counter-attack. We are very quick to condemn our players and we have to do better but I can’t fault their energy and effort. But credit to our opponents. We didn’t always make the right choices and played safe too much of the time. I think our defenders had more touches of the ball than anyone else. We didn’t play forward enough and our midfield players were not good enough to create chances in the second half. We were pedestrian and slow. Another two injuries mean that I haven’t got many players to shuffle the pack with”

Tony Walley
Tony Walley
News & Sport Editor

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