The youth team went into this top of the table clash with 7 players either injured or suspended and Fabio Abreu away with England Schools U18 in Poland. As a result, Mossley were forced to give 15 year old Reece McLaughlin his debut in centre of midfield. The tempo of the game was high from the start from both sides and given the small pitch space was hard to come by with each team cancelling the other out in the majority of the first half.

Chances were hard to come by. Joe Heap sent over several testing crosses that had the home teams defence in trouble but Mossley's forwards failed to get on the end of any of them to test Hayden Buckley-Smith in the FC Utd goal.

Jordon Cuff made several mazy runs through the home teams defence but was unable to make any of the count At the other end Mossley's defence coped comfortably with the home teams lively forward line.

The second half stated with FC Utd on the front foot but Mossley soon began to push the league leaders further into their own half.

On 63 mins a ball from Cuff was flicked into the path of Heap by Wes Harny but as Heap was homing in on goal the poor condition of the pitch got the better of him and the FC Utd centre back was able to make up the ground to block Heaps shot.

The home sides attacks were now restricted to to breaks and it was from one of these breaks they forced a throw in down Mossley's right side. Full back Ryan Lyons put a long throw into the box which Mossley failed to deal with and in the resulting melay Harrison Reeve pocked the ball home.

Mossley immediately reverted to 3-5-2 and increased the pressure on the home sides goal creating chance after chance but were unable to beat Buckley-Smith.

Then on 78 mins Tom Clarke burst into the box nodded the ball over the home sides static defence only for the FC Utd centre back to blatantly block off Clarke with his body leaving the two of them on the ground. Astonishingly the referee who had a perfect view of the incident waved play on.

The remaining 10 mins were played in darkness as the light faded and no floodlights. During this period I lost count of the number of times the home sides defence kicked the ball out of the ground trying to keep their goal intact such was the pressure Mossley were exerting on it.

With such an abundance of talented players on display from both sides its only a shame that the game had to be played on what can only be described as the worst playing surface in the league.

Report by Rob Byrne