Poor Harriers struggle to defeat at Macclesfield

The Harriers spurned the chance to move into fourth place in the table today with this extremely poor showing at at an equally extremely cold, cold Macclesfield.  With the home fans having worked damned hard to clear the pitch of snow, and the 146 Harriers fans taking the the risk that the game could still have been called off, it was a brilliant chance to take advantage of later defeats to two of the play-off contenders, Forest Green and Newport.

Sadly our toothless team failed in all departments to gain anything more than zero points from the game.

The team lined up with Keith Briggs returning from injury at, surprisingly, the expense of James Vincent.  With Vincent not to be seen on the bench either it seemed obvious that he was out through injury.  On the bench for the first time following injury we were able to welcome back Danny Pilkington.

The Harriers started the game well but that was only to last five minutes.  Some slick passing from the Reds left Macclesfield dizzying in circles as they watched the ball whip round them at speed.

Then no sooner had it started then it stopped.

The home side slowly took control of the game with some slick passing of their own and most of the play was coming from the highly rated Jean-Paul Kissock.  The pint sized midfielder was running into space with ease and laying balls off to his team mates that were now leaving us dizzy.

If only his colleagues could have buried the chances they had we would have gone into the break five goals to the worse.  The former Harriers hero, Matt Barnes-Homer was having a quiet game but not so Waide Fairhurst and Keiran Murtagh who both saw early efforts fly over the bar.

Other chances came the way of the home side but Danny Lewis was adept at pushing the efforts away to safety.  At the other end Lance Cronin had nothing to do.  Our only sights of goal came from a Ryan Rowe shot that went wide and a weak header later on.  The one good chance we had fell to Callum Gittings but instead of letting Marvin Johnsons deep cross drop to his feet he chested it down instead and so his shot went to high over the bar.

A minute from the break Jack Mackreth should have scored for his side but again the golden chance went just over the bar.

After trying to get warm for fifteen minutes the Harriers fans were looking forward to a better display in the second period.  It wasn't going to happen for quite a while.

Macclesfield came out with the full intention of winning the game and numerous chances fell their way from MBH, Thierry Audel and Kissock.  Understandably the goal wasn't long coming.

A free kick deep in their own half was taken by Fairhurst to Mackreth out wide.  He took the ball almost to the touchline and sent over a deep cross that found the un-marked head of the provider as Fairhurst nodded home at the far post.

Immediately Steve Burr, a former Macc legend himself, made the first substitution of the day when he sent on Danny Pilkington for the busy Keith Briggs.  Most fans were expecting a straight swap with the disappointing Johnson after his failure to make any impression on the game, and his mis-placed passes, but it was Briggs that went off.

Soon after a second sub was made with Nathan Blissett coming on for Gittings.  Again a strange move with Gittings having one of his better games while up front Ryan Rowe was having a stinker.

Either way the subs seemed to work because soon after their introduction we had our best chance of the day so far when a deep cross from Pilkington found the head of Marvin Johnson who flicked it onto the bar and over.

In boring games like this one you often find that a controversial decision will wake a game up.  That came with the harsh sending off of Pablo Mills when he and Lee Vaughan went for the same ball together.  Vaughan seemed to slip more than anything but the referee was closer than us fans and he deemed it to be violent conduct from the former Crawley man.

For afters the Macclesfield manager, Steve King, was also sent off and made to sit in the stand following an altercation with the officials.

With the home side now a man less you would have expected the Harriers to pile on the pressure a little more.  We tried but were toothless in attack and it wasn't until near the end that Rowe managed to beat his man and get in a fine header from a Pilkington cross that Cronin only just managed to push onto the crossbar.

The game ended.  It was cold and we wanted to get back to the warmth of our cars and eventually home.

 Goal for Macclesfield: Fairhurst 56

REFEREE:

Mr S Stockbridge Tyne & Wear