Match Report

Goals from Jerome Wright and Phil Marsh were enough to seal United’s second win in four days as they controlled Burscough before eventually sealing the 2-0 victory.

With confidence high from Wednesday’s victory over Marine, United began with ten of the eleven who played in the midweek match; the only change being the return of captain David Chadwick for Rob Nugent, and quickly set about trying to open the visitors up.

Controlling the game from midfield United always looked the more dangerous and an early low free kick from Wright saw Burscough ‘keeper Mark Halstead called into action not for the first but certainly not the last time in the afternoon.

Chances were coming for the home team who knew it was a matter of when rather than if they could get a goal on the board and Marsh, Ben Deegan and Carlos Roca were all denied by Halstead as the visitors frustrated the United forwards with their sheer resilience.

After about half an hour Burscough had some periods of good possession and United must have been thinking there would have been a repeat of the Boston fixture where they looked the more dominating before the visitors took the lead. But in this case the visitors couldn’t break the United stronghold, indeed Sam Ashton was rarely tested all afternoon on way to his second clean sheet in as many games.

United did make the breakthrough only minutes before the interval when Wright went on one of his trademark runs down the left beating any defender who tried to take the ball off him before seeing his effort go past Halstead and give United a more than deserved lead.

The second half carried on in much the same way with United dominating large spells and controlling the game creating good chances for Marsh and Deegan but again they were frustrated by Burscough’s resilience.

But the cushion of a two goal lead wasn’t far away as man-of-the-match Wright again gave defender David Ryan nightmares on the left, before seeing his low cross fired home by Marsh who opened his account the season; obviously delighted with the goal from his knee sliding celebration towards the corner flag.

After this it was a case of cruise control for United who knew they had the game in the bag and didn’t really try too hard to extend their lead in the final half hour.

With one eye on the third game in six days at Ossett Town on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon, manager Karl Marginson substituted Wright, Roca and Simon Carden, giving outings to Jake Cottrell, Danny Williams and Ben Morris. With the later proving a menace to the Burscough defence from the left, even coming close to scoring his first United goal with a thundering left footed effort form the edge of the box.

Both Danny Warrender and Adam Carden were denied close range goals by excellent impulse saves from Halstead and the last five minutes saw United with almost all the possession in what was something like a keep-ball session in training.

So the second win in three days and from being without a win in three United are now undefeated in three and more importantly playing with bags full of confidence and belief in their ability. Showing just how quickly things can change in this game we love.

Report by Craig Phillips.