Wycombe: The Opposition View

Following Wycombe Wanderers 2-1 win over Accrington Stanley at Adams Park yesterday, here are some views from Stanley manager John Coleman and a few of their fans.


Coleman was clearly very disappointed.

‘I feel we have been mugged as our keeper hardly had a save to make all day.’

‘The best team lost the game’ said Coleman, bemoaning the fact that when you are a struggling team, things don’t go for you like they do if you are top of the league.

Coleman felt the referee gave a ‘steady stream of decisions’ against his side, drawing particular attention to the free-kick from which Wycombe scored the winning goal.

In conclusion Coleman said: ‘They are top of the table but you wouldn’t be able to tell which team was which if you were judging by the performance of the two sides.’



Sorry, but Accrington supporters’ views appear to be rarer than hen’s teeth so I’ve included a long one to make up for it. They also felt they deserved something from the game.

The following extracts are from Accrington web.



Phil Whalley wrote:
‘Just back from the game, Stanley can count themselves unfortunate not to have come away with a point, they more than matched Wycombe.

Wycombe had just one notable shot on target, and that was the winner, and it came with just 10 minutes to go to leave Stanley with little time to find a response.

The game had a cautious start. The first worry was the speed of the right-sided Wycombe midfielder who easily had King for pace, but we came very close to scoring after ten minutes when a header was cleared off the line. Shortly after this, Mullin lofted a shot over the keeper from the edge of the box, and the Wycombe hordes were well and truly silenced.

And then Stanley soaked up the pressure with little bother. What was frustrating, to put it mildly, was the tame way we surrendered what had been a hard-fought lead. They found space down the right and the cross was low and hard, but there was no-one around Murdock. He was probably trying to control the ball, but it just came off his boot and straight in. If he`d been down the other end you`d have been applauding his calmness in front of goal.

After that it became an issue of digging in and reasserting ourselves and we did this really well. I hope young Kissock isn`t injured as the reports say. In the first half he did that patrolling thing where he would pick the ball up deep and look for the incisive pass. You could see the Premiership schooling in that he was reluctant to lose possession. In the second-half, he played a more attacking role down the left and, obvious inexperience notwithstanding, did more than enough to justify his place.

We started the second period very brightly. The thing we conspicuously lacked was the cutting edge up front, but the work-rate throughout the team was more than enough to counter any Wycombe threat. We were looking good for the point when a move down the right ended with a cross and a far post finish. Those around me were saying that Murdock had failed to go with his man, making it not the best of days for him.

We were now chasing the game but the final minutes were hugely frustrating as, for all out possession, we couldn`t manoeuvre a clear chance and failed to find Mullin with any of the high balls lofted into the box.

I guess that it`s no disgrace to lose narrowly away to the league leaders, but it was galling to fall behind when we did after matching them throughout. I doubt Kenny has found himself so under-employed in the course of conceding twice and losing a game.



mab wrote:
‘ We deserved something from this game. We more than matched the league leaders and had Wycombe defending for their lives at the end. Great goal by Paul Mullin to open the scoring from the edge of the area. The two goals conceded were disappointing – own goal was just unlucky and then conceded from a set piece.’



maccawozzagod wrote:
‘Twice this lot have mugged us late in the game!’



Indeed.