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City travelled to Leicestershire to face a Loughborough side who have steadfastly held a position in mid-table for the whole season. The Lilywhites went into the game with a strong squad, choosing to go with a the physical presence on the pitch on Simon Swinton while resting Jarid Robson and Ben Nolan. Mikey Davies also kept his place in the starting line up meaning Jake Battersby was again playing in his preferred position on the left wing.
The game's early stages were pretty even with both sides happy to keep the ball for long periods without really creating anything meaningful. It wasn’t until the 14th minute that the 153 spectators were treated to a first serious attempt on goal. Aaron Hart found Dan Cotton in space 25 yards from goal, the City hitman had time and space to turn and fizz a powerful effort towards goal that unfortunately didn’t trouble the keeper.
On 20 mins a Loughborough freekick fell to the feet of the tricky George Ball, who jinked inside his man but could only produce a weak strike that was easily dealt with by City Stopper Joe Welch.
City were beginning to get on top with slick passing in the midfield and long periods of possession, the only thing missing was the final ball to set up a chance for one of the strikers.
Then disaster struck when, against the run of play, Loughborough picked up a soft free kick on the edge of the City box. Attacker Evan Garnett keeled over under what looked like a good challenge from Yaw Ofosu and the ref bought it. Dynamo fullback Callum Cocks, bent a brilliant freekick over the wall and was unlucky to see his effort come back off the upright. The rebound fortuitously fell straight to Edward Cook who made a meal of the challenge from Simon Swinton and chose to go down in the box for the pen rather than take on the shot from 6 yards.
Cocks stepped up again, this time to be thwarted by a brilliant save from Welch diving down to his left, he parried the ball onto the post. With Cocks firing blanks, it was Evan Garnett who had started this sequence of events, that was on hand to smash the rebound past Welch for an unlikely 1-0 lead.
Loughborough tails were up and just 2 mins after the goal, Garnett beat the offside to get on the end of an excellent through ball from Lui Bull. From an acute angle, the striker couldn’t get past the advancing Welch and the City man did well to save with his feet.
The final chance of the half fell to City, A Mikey Davies cross found its way to Isaac Maynard on the edge of the box whose curling effort looked to be heading for the top corner until the flying Lewis King in the Loughborough goal, got fingertips on it to divert the ball over the bar.
City kicked off the second half and for the first 10 minutes dominated the play. Tom Lorraine was bought down on the edge of the box in the 55th minute and from the resulting freekick, Cotton cleverly chipped the ball over the wall and only just missed the target.
2 minutes later and it was Tom Waumsleys turn to go close, again the cross from Davies found his man just inside the box. He turned his man well but couldn’t quite get the bend on his shot to steer it into the far corner. It was much better stuff from City and Loughborough were struggling to get out of their half.
City had further half chances falling to Battersby and Ofosu before Jarid Robson was introduced, replacing Simon Swinton on 78 minutes. It wasn’t long before the City striker made his mark. An excellent cross from Battersby was audaciously flicked goalwards by Waumsley with the outside of his boot, only to see his attempt hit the crossbar, this time City we in luck and the ball fell straight to Robson who hit the back of the net unchallenged.
City pressed forward to get the winner but were restricted to only one more long-range effort from Waumsley on 91 minutes. The Ball not troubling the keeper as it cleared the crossbar.
All things considered, this was another good away performance and an important point. We travel to Daventry in mid-week for a 3rd attempt at getting the game started, a win against the Struggling Northamptonshire outfit could see City move up to the dizzy heights of 12th in the league
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