With their defence decimated by injury and unavailability Mossley were always likely to struggle to get anything from their visit to promotion chasing Leek Town on Saturday, and so it proved.
If fact the Lilywhites couldn’t have gotten off to a much worse start. A goal down inside a minute and two down inside five minutes meant a mountain to climb for the beleaguered Mossley side.
The fact that Leek only managed two further goals over the following 85 minutes was testament to a Mossley side who just didn’t roll over and even threatened to make a fist of it for a while in the second half.
There is no doubting the quality in the Leek Town squad, they are an experienced and talented team who defend confidently and counter attack at pace with great movement on their carpet like artificial surface and would have been a handful for even a fully fit Mossley team and on this occasion they were simply too much for the defensively frail Lilywhites.
With Devon Matthews suspended and Ste Mason unavailable it meant a debut for teenage rookie centre back Tyler Williams who grew into the game after struggling along with his fellow defenders early on.
It took around 45 seconds for Leek to open the scoring and it came from a counter attack after Mossley had kicked off and lost possession on the edge of the Leek box. Trickett-Smith broke down Mossley ‘s left wing, crossed and Amar Dyer poked the ball home.
Just over four minutes later and it was two. Will Saxon and Dan Trickett-Smith combined for the latter to score from close range.
Mossley slowly began to find some composure and Andy Keogh had Mossley’s first effort on target when he met Mason Fawns pass but home keeper Roberts was equal to it.
Grundy with a great block and Kelly with a quality save helped to keep the score down as Leek looked dangerous with ever foray forward.
Mossley came close on 23 minutes when a great strike by Kane Hickman smashed against the post with the home keeper beaten. A Mossley goal at this point might have made a difference, it wasn’t to be.
Leek had a couple more half chances before making it 3-0 just before the break. Saxon’s run and cross was struck home by Dan Trickett-Smith for his second of the game.
A change of shape at half time saw recent signing Louie Potts (pictured below) replace Jack Banister and the powerful forward signed on dual registration from Avro made a good impression on his debut, holding the ball up well and making a genuine nuisance of himself around the Leek Town box.
Mossley enjoyed more of the ball after the break but Leek’s defence was proving to be a brick wall and the Lilywhites could find no way through despite the probing of Fawns, Keogh and Potts.
Leek saw a shot saved well by Kelly and another effort skim the outside of a post before a good run by Dyer gave Will Saxon a simple tap in for Leek’s fourth goal on 72 minutes.
Late on, Kelly made a great back-peddling save to keep out a long distance dipper from Leek substitute Brian Ly who had spotted the Mossley keeper off his line and in the last minute another Leek effort hit the post but this time bounced back into the grateful Kelly’s arms and no further damage was done.
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