Sutton Hang On To Draw With Nine Men
- Johnnie Lowery
- Feb 5, 2017
- 2 min read
Sutton United held on with just 9 men on Saturday to take Boreham Wood to a replay in the 3rd round of the FA Trophy.
In front of a somewhat disappointing crowd of 879 the game was slow to start, though it was clear that the visitors’ wide players would be a major threat to the U’s back line. This was a threat that proved too much for Ben Jefford, who having been booked for a late challenge on Andrade, was perhaps foolish to pull him back when not much was on, earning him a second booking and an early bath. As it happened Andrade did very little for the remainder of the game with Dan Spence moving into left back and having an excellent game. The side with the man advantage had one good chance where Jeffrey stayed onside to play the ball back across the 6-yard box, but there was nobody there to turn home. One of the talking points of the first half was the excellent save by Ross Worner right at the end of the half, somehow saving from a Morgan Ferrier header that looked certain to find the net.
Ferrier had a chance early on in the second half, firing just wide, but it was the home side that looked to press. May had an effort from range fly just over the bar but the best opportunity fell to the industrious Maxime Biamou. Doing well to get on the end of a long ball the striker’s lobbed effort beat the keeper but didn’t quite have enough on it to cross the line and Stephens was able to clear for a corner. Sutton’s strong performance came to a somewhat abrupt and harsh halt as referee Dean Treleaven deemed a strong Eastmond challenge worthy of a red card, wasting no time in pulling the card from his pocket and gesturing the midfielder towards the tunnel. The pressure was on now but the final ball often let the Wood down as they searched for a goal. The away fans thought they had won it after a goalmouth scramble right at the death but the flag went up for offside – the visitors’ claiming otherwise but there seemed to be a foul on Worner anyway. The game now goes to a replay on Tuesday night at Boreham Wood’s Meadow Park.
Manager Paul Doswell, speaking to SUFCtv, was delighted with the efforts of his players:
“I thought the players were absolutely magnificent – to go down to 10 is hard enough but then to go down to 9 with 25 minutes to go…it’s like attack vs defence for the last 20 minutes, but what a set of players they are to dig in really”
“They (Boreham Wood) make the pitch very very big, their two wide players stay right out wide, and I thought we defended our box manfully”
“The one thing we can’t not talk about today is one of the best saves I’ve ever seen…I just saw this hand appear from nowhere - a magnificent save”
On the Eastmond red card:
“Disappointing for us, disappointing for him, but I’m going to have a really good look at it because live it didn’t look like a red to me – I thought a yellow would have sufficed”