Nantwich Town were thumped 0-4 at home by Cheshire rivals Witton Albion in one of the Dabbers’ worst performances of the season, writes Oliver Shorland.
And with only four games remaining in the Northern Premier League West, mid-table Nantwich’s season is in danger of fizzling out in disappointing fashion.
Nantwich boss Luke Goddard made three changes from the draw with Mossley with Byron Moore, Joe Robbins, and Fenton Green making the starting line-up.
The opening exchanges were marked by physicality from the opposition as Nantwich struggled to play their way into the game.
Witton continued to dictate the play and nearly took the lead but Freddy Garbutt was denied by a remarkable tackle from Paddy Kennedy.
However, it was not long until Albion capitalised on their dominance, taking the lead just after the half-hour mark through Tom Hoyle.
He poked the ball under Dabbers keeper Ben Garratt who was attempting to smother the strike.
The Dabbers attempted to exploit space in wide areas, with most of the positive play in the first half coming through captain Joel Connolly, stinging the hands of Cameron Terry on two separate occasions.
Nantwich were gifted a chance to level things from almost nothing towards the end of the first half as Byron Harrison got the break of the ball only to roll his effort wide.
Albion doubled their lead two minutes after the break with a well-worked free kick, teeing up Hoyle to drive it into the bottom corner for his second of the day.
A double substitution for the Dabbers saw James Baillie and Kelvin Mellor replace Ben Hockenhull and Paddy Kennedy as the hosts looked to find a way back into the game.
However, Nantwich’s opportunities to halve the deficit were few and far between.
The best fell to Baillie, who took the ball down well and beat his defender but sliced his effort into the side netting just past the hour mark.
Goddard’s men soon had an even bigger mountain to climb when Joe Edwards put Albion 3-0 up. With the ball seemingly glued to his foot, he sliced open the Nantwich back line to fire past Garratt.
With ten minutes to go, Hoyle nearly made it a hat-trick, but his effort was smothered by the Dabbers stopper.
Another chance soon followed as Edwards looked to curl his effort in but was just wide of the target.
Edwards did double his tally soon after to make it 4-0 to the visitors as he was allowed to walk the ball into the back of the net.
Goddard’s Nantwich side will now travel to take on league leaders Bury next Saturday, April 11th.
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