Honours Even At Gander Green Lane
- Johnnie Lowery
- Jan 22, 2017
- 2 min read
In a game that threatened to be an anti-climax after the thrills of Wimbledon, United battled hard to come from behind and secure a point against big-spending Eastleigh.
Whilst the U’s came out of the block fairly quickly it was the away side who took the lead after a series of mishaps in defence for Sutton. Spence, excellent on Tuesday, twice failed to effectively clear the ball and former U Ross Stearn was able to find an unmarked Tyler Barrett. He looped his header in past Worner to give the Hampshire side something to defend. On the whole they did a very good job of this, with the two huge centre backs often shutting the door when required to. Fitchett had a weak shot from the edge of the box easily held, with Deacon also seeing an effort held by Spitfires’ keeper Graham Stack. Max Biamou came the closest in the first half for Sutton but fired just wide from a narrow angle after getting in behind the defence.
The second half continued to be a scrappy affair with the main threat for the visitors coming from the monster throws of Muggleton – though most went straight to Ross Worner. Constable did get his head onto the end of one of the throws but his header was comfortably off target. It was Ross Stearn who troubled Worner the most, United’s shot stopped having to be alert to tip an effort from 25 yards over the bar. After a poor first fifteen minutes or so Sutton began to put pressure on the visitors and Adam May fired an effort just wide from 18 yards out. Having been under pressure from long throws all afternoon it was perhaps ironic that Sutton’s equaliser eventually came from such a situation, Beckwith flicking on for Tubbs to head home with fifteen minutes still to play. It was all the home side from this point with both Tubbs and Biamou coming close with header efforts, but the game ended up honours even – both sides would probably agree a draw was a fair result.
Manager Paul Doswell gave his thoughts to SUFCtv after the game:
“It was a game that was difficult to watch…but both Martin (Allen) and I will I think be pleased with a draw, certainly I think that was a fair result”
“They’re a very difficult side to play against, well organised, well planned, and you’ve got to be at your best defensively against Eastleigh”
“The crowd livened up second half which helped us and I thought we thoroughly deserved something out of the game, not necessarily the win, but as I say we were up against a very well organised and well-disciplined Eastleigh team”