Late heartbreak for Nomads as Congleton progress

Nomads were unlucky to be knocked out of the Macron Cup by Premier League side Congleton Town after two late goals.

The start of the game couldn’t have been worse for Nomads as Congleton counter attacked from a Nomads throw in deep in their own half to cut right through Cheadle to make 1-0 within 44 seconds.

It looked like it was going to be a long night for them as Congleton’s Number 9 Tom Pope was dominate in the air and winning all the balls played up to him to link up the play with his teammates.

Nomads started to settle down & began to show there was 2 teams in this game. On the 13th minute mark it was 1-1 as Nomasds maintained possession for a period of time moving the Congleton player across the pitch waiting for their moment to strike and when they did it was great link up play by the 2 Danny’s, Byrnes putting McLaughlin through with an excellent pass between the centre back & left back for him to placing the ball across goal into the bottom corner.

After that Nomads started to keep possession of the ball and when they did lose possession, they were able to hold off attacks at their goal and now with either Josh Tinker or Jordan Milne screening Tom Pope.

Nomads were able to regain possession. The battle of the wingers from both sides was an intense one as the pace by all was frightening and always threated down both flanks if wasn’t for some great positioning and recovery pace by the full backs of both teams, they would have been some more goals. Congleton started to wrestle some control back to the game with 10 minutes before the break, but Nomads held firm and it ended 1-1 at Half time.

HT: NOMADS 1 Congleton Town 1

Within 5 minutes for the restart the home side had taken the lead, again great combination play on the right side for a low cross into the box for Kyle Foley putting into the net.

This gave Nomads a lot of confidence as they continued to have possession for long periods and could have made it 3 or 4 with those chances coming from Kieran O’Connell up for a corner with scramble in the box for his shot from the angle just going past the wide, and Charlie Mulgrew rattling the crossbar from 20 yards out with the keeper rooted to the spot.

Not to disregard Congleton who also had chances to make level again had it not been some great saves by Dimeji Willlan. Nomads seem to look comfortable until disaster struck with 7 minutes to go as Robbie Wallis’s soft header back to Dimeji didn’t have the legs to reach him which left Dimeji in no man’s land and now 1v1 with Congleton’s Oliver Putnam who confidently rounded him to make it 2-2.

The Pressure really started to increase on Nomads as the equaliser gave Congleton new lease of life as they looked to get a winner before the end of the game, Max Lewens was brought on to expose the space that became open in behind and had a chance to take the lead again for Nomads but sadly it was just wide of the near post.

With 2 minutes to go a long diagonal pass lands in Nomads back which leads to Nomads players putting their body on the line to do anything they could stop the ball going over the line and some reaction saves by Dimeji also then in the melee a sharp hit into the ground bounces off and passed the Nomads players even with Kieran O’Connell’s best attempt of Luis Suarez to handle the ball on the line to stop it going in wasn’t successful and Congleton had the lead leaving Nomads with no time to respond.

FT: NOMADS 2 Congleton Town 3

Report by Brendan Johns

After the game we got the thoughts of Manager Jake Davies:

“Overall we are all disappointed by the result as we feel we’ve produced a very credible display and unfortunate to not be on the winning side.

For 80 minutes we’ve produced a brilliant performance and to a degree kept Congleton at bay not allowing them to produce any clear-cut chances whilst always looking threatening going through other way.

The players have given everything but ultimately as most of the season has shown, making individual mistakes in crucial game changing moments has cost us today and across the season. I think Congleton would say they have been a little fortunate today and without us gifting the 2nd a way we probably come away with a 2-1 win.

Even when we went to a five we kept them at bay all be it getting a little deeper but we needed some fresher legs on the pitch to close the ball down higher and stop there CB’s just clipping balls into our back line which is why we added another one in there as it was proving challenging to get pressure on the ball higher up.

We can take a lot of good things out of that performance, but we are disappointed we aren’t in the hat for the next round. We’ll learn a lot from tonight no doubts and try and implement into the next cup opportunity we get against New Mills.”

TEAMS

NOMADS: Willan, Wallis, Taylor, O’Connell, Wright, Tinker, Byrnes, Milne, McLaughlin, Foley, Alley
Subs: Mulgrew, Blackwell, Lewens
Unused: Coates, Deering

Congleton Town: Parton, Faulkner, Nsaka, Booth, Read, Chadwick, Putnam, Jones-Griffiths, Pope, Johnson, Johns
Subs: Griffiths, Needham
Unused: Duffy, Tsegay