FOOTBALL: Hopes Fade For Goal Shy United
11 March Hastings Utd 0 Wingate & Finchley 2
15 March Dartford 2 Hastings Utd 0
22 March Hastings Utd 0 Chichester City 2
HUGH SULLIVAN
Three further defeats have been suffered by Hastings United in the past fortnight, two of them at home and without a single goal scored.
Aerial combat in Hastings goalmouth
As of last Saturday evening, Danny Searle’s men have managed to put the ball in the net just nine times altogether in 15 consecutive Isthmian League matches since Christmas, only once (the 2-0 victory over Hendon on 8 March) scoring more than one in a game.
All six teams at the bottom of the league table also lost last Saturday, but with Hastings remaining ten points adrift of Canvey Island in 18th place (and with a much inferior goal difference), that’s little relief. A team that can’t score has no chance of retrieving such a deficit.
Searle has argued in past weeks that his first priority in taking on the managerial reins in early December was to shore up a dysfunctional defence. The team which had, a couple of weeks before, conceded nine goals at Hendon was clearly in need of some defensive restructuring, and Searle’s central pairing of Teddy Perkins with Ollie Black at the back has proved generally effective. Ben Wells has been providing extra protection in a deep midfield role ahead of them, allowing George Walker and Alex Kopke to push forward at times as wing-backs.
However, the long ball game, which seems to have been introduced for the purpose of lessening the risk of loss of possession at the back, has also left the United forwards bereft of sustained support. Against a well-marshalled defence, none has proved consistently capable of holding the ball even when they are in a position to compete for it, which means that it just keeps coming back.
Against Chichester, the ‘U’s played at times with three – Davide Rodat, Si Ligendza and Reece Grant – up front, competing for the high balls lobbed up to them against taller and physically imposing defenders. The main avenue of attack was a series of long throws launched by Black, whose projectiles regularly reached the middle of a crowded penalty area, but also invariably it was a defender’s head that would knock them away.
Chichester countered through their own long throw exponent, Isaac Bello. ‘U’s keeper Louis Rogers gobbled up two or three of his throws from the right without mishap, but then a shorter delivery from the left side to the near post found a tall defender, Curtis Da Costa, rising highest to back-head the opening goal.
In the second half, another long throw from the visitors’ left was recycled across goal, and a sharp low cross back from the right wing was turned in by their centre forward Lewis Rustell to double the lead.
Searle replaced Ligendza and midfielder Kian Moynes with Fin Chapman and Jamal Lubanga, and the ‘U’s pressed fitfully: Perkins flicked a shot narrowly wide, and Rodari drew a flying save from the Chichester keeper. But in truth his goal was rarely threatened, and the game petered to a predictable conclusion.
Hastings were due to play Canvey Island at the Pilot Field on Tuesday of this week, and will also play them away in Essex on 12 April. If the ‘U’s could somehow win both matches, that would reduce the gap between the two sides to four points–a great escape could then still, in theory, be on the cards. Anything less, and relegation is surely inevitable.
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