Gloucester City assistant manager Marc McGregor was pleased with his side’s performance despite being unable to find a winner as they and second placed AFC Totton played out a goalless stalemate at the TigerTurf Stadium.
As was the case in the reverse fixture at the Snows Stadium there was little to separate the two sides as they cancelled each other out with neither seizing the initiative and getting the winner.
McGregor was stepping in the place of City’s boss Mike Cook who was serving a touchline ban for accumulation of yellow cards after encroaching out of the touchline in their away victory against Bracknell Town on Tuesday night.
City who would have drawn level on points with the Stags if they secured victory were the brighter of the two sides in the opening period and tested the away side’s keeper Ryan Gosney on a number of occasions but they were unable to get the breakthrough.
Elis Watts on his first home start for City fired over the bar with a powerful strike after great interchange play with top scorer Joe Hanks, before Brandon Smalley forced Gosney into palming away a strong effort that would have given City the lead and put him into double digits for the season.
Elis Watts in action on his first home start for his new club
Totton came on strong in the second half without testing the City keeper Jared Thompson after bringing on lower league veteran Scott Rendell and former Premier League striker Charlie Austin at the hour mark but were unable to break the deadlock.
Kieran Phillips off the bench nearly won the game for the Tigers with the last embers of the match but his header from inside the six yard box was catching practice for Gosney and the game finished scoreless as the 1492 strong attendance couldn’t see City get the winner that would put pressure at the top of the table.
McGregor believed that his side was the better of the two sides in a tense and tetchy match that was played majority in between the two boxes.
On the balance of chances I think we’ve probably had six on target, they’ve had one shot on target which was a long range shot from set play.
On the balance of play we probably deserved it but second half we just didn’t do enough, to create enough chances.
City struggled to get a foothold for portions of the second period and were unable to create many clear cut chances that saw the game finish in a dull draw, but McGregor admitted that was because of the changes that the opposition made.
‘You have to give them a little bit of credit, they changed at half time, knowing probably that we were causing them a lot of problems so they pushed on their shape against us.
“Maybe going a little more direct into our frontmen and looking after the ball a bit better may have got us a bit higher up the pitch.”
Ed Williams was awarded with the man of the match award adding to his fine displays over the past month in varying positions in the midfield and out on the wing and it didn’t go unnoticed by the former Weston-super-Mare manager.
“We’ve all known what a good player Ed is, since playing against him when he was at Kidderminster we know what he’s got and it’s getting the best out of him.
“At the moment we are doing that, we would love to see Ed creating and scoring a bit more but that’s us being a little bit selfish but he has been fantastic and as long as that continues he will stay in the side.”
Ed Williams on the ball, the main shining light in a strong Gloucester City performance
A three game week for the Yellows has seen them pick up five points with draws against Frome Town and the Totton stalemate sandwiched by the victory against Bracknell Town but also crucially did not concede a goal a stark contrast to their previous shutout which was in October.
“We just spoke about that inside, it was really important that we started picking up clean sheets and having to put a bit of pressure off scoring two or three.”
It had been another testing week for City with the draws against the most in-form side in the Southern Premier Division in Frome, and a Totton side who had scored in every game before Saturday and the matches had taken a toll on the increasingly stretched squad.
We’ve got players hanging on with Jared (Jared Thompson) playing with a sore quad, Ed (Ed Williams) who’s just coming back, Elis (Elis Watts) putting in a hell of a shift today for someone who’s not played a load of minutes.
Dawson’s played like typical Kev Dawson magnificent for us and the back four just keep on impressing.
Bearing in mind Jake (Jake Evans) is a midfielder he looks a comfortable right back so it’s disappointing that we couldn’t get a goal for the fans.
In a busy and congested period of the season, City have a week to prepare for their next fixture away to mid table Basingstoke Town, before travelling again for a match under the lights at Gosport Borough who knocked them out the FA Cup second qualifying round back in September.
After picking up their first away win since 22nd October in the win over the Robins on Tuesday night, the 47-year-old understands the importance of picking up three points and adding to their four wins on the road in the Southern Premier Division this season.
“We’ve got to work hard, no doubt about it.
“Those two games are going to be as tough as today.
“At home we know we are a good side, away from home we’ve got to be up for the challenge and we’ve done that a few times this year.
“We are looking forward to them and we are really pleased that we are in the position that we are in because it gives us a chance to chase Totton and also put some distance between the ones below us.
“We are looking forward to it, we’ve got a few achy bodies, it’s going to be a challenge throughout the week to see how many people we can get on the training field, but that’s our job and we are going to do our best.”
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