City of Liverpool 1-2 Cheadle Town

Whilst Cheadle Town effectively have nothing to play for this season, they are certainly not making life easy for their opposition as was witnessed on Bank Holiday Monday with a deserved victory at promotion chasers City of Liverpool.

Second half goals from Rhys Webb and Dean Nolan sealed the victory in front of a record breaking 691 crowd.

The first half saw few goal scoring chances for either side as resolute defending stopped the attacking play.

City of Liverpool had a chance on 35 minutes when header was excellently saved by Dane Smith. This was following by a half chance from Cheadle’s Luke Hincks who fired wide of the post on 41 minutes.

HT: City of Liverpool 0 Cheadle Town 0

The game started to open up in the second half and Cheadle were grateful for the strong defence.

Cheadle had a good chance to take the lead on 70 minutes when Rhys Webb took the ball past the keeper but could only cross it agonisingly across the line of the goal with no one availbale to convert.

Webb was rewarded with a goal on 75 minutes when his initial shot from the edge of the area was only parried by the keeper into his path and he finished from close range.

Cheadle increased their lead on 83 minutes when Dean Nolan rose to head home a corner.

City of Liverpool did reduce the arrears 4 minutes into injury time and it was too late for a comeback as the referee called time immediately after the restart.

Cheadle Town 1-5 City of Liverpool

Safe to say that this - in terms of what happened on the pitch - wasn't the best of nights for all associated with Cheadle Town FC.

Five goals conceded (we're yet to keep a clean sheet in all competitions this season), a player sent off and a further two injured...which actually resulted in us playing with eight men towards the latter stages of the match.

Full credit to City of Liverpool who had their clinical heads on and, when presented with an opportunity to score, rarely wasted it; some of the finishing was superb.

They hit us with a two-goal salvo in the space of two minutes early in the first half.

On the 12th minute we lost the ball in midfield and Daley Woods was put through in a flash to advance on goal and slot home with Thomas Peterson then smashing home from the edge of the area to double the visitors lead.

Peterson got his second - and City of Liverpool's third - on 37 minutes when he latched onto a raking diagonal pass and found the top corner.

Their fourth came soon after the restart when a daisy-cutting ball from the right was slid home by Francis Barry at the far post before Peterson got his hat-trick on the 66th minute after he received the ball with his back to goal, turned and rifled home from the edge of the area.

This is not to say that we didn't have our chances. Far from it. In the first half we had enough opportunities to have had some sort of a foothold in the game.

As early as the 5th minute Mike Sherrington went down the left, pulling the ball back for Luke Hincks in space to fire home but his shot hit a CoL defender and had the sting taken out of it, making it easy for the keeper to collect.

Sam Noar headed just over from a corner shortly after CoL had gone two up with an incredible incident three minutes later.

With the CoL keeper stranded after coming out to clear, Chris Sherrington went for the audacious lob. His brother Mike latched onto it near the goal and looked set to score with his effort but the CoL keeper somehow managed to recover and claw the ball back from the goal-line.

Sam Noar then clattered the crossbar midway through the second half but by then a considerable amount of damage had been done: we were 0-5 down and a man down after Mike Sherrington had received a straight red card on the hour mark.

Sam got his reward for his efforts on 74 minutes, albeit in slightly comical fashion, having all of the time to roll home into an empty net after the CoL keeper had completely missed a kick and ended up on his backside.

Both Liam Tongue and James Dunn had to hobble off injured after all three substitutes had been used, CoL had the ball in the net twice more but were thankfully called for offside and Ben Jupp - having received his Goalkeeper of the Month Award before kick-off - kept the scoreline sane with a couple of key blocks.

We've had better nights.

The squad will have to draw a line under this and pick themselves up for the trip to Chadderton on Saturday. The perfect opportunity for a quick response.

Off the pitch our thanks to the City of Liverpool fans who boosted the crowd, contributed to a lively atmosphere and no doubt had a very enjoyable evening. We prepared the best we could to host a large crowd and I think we got it right on the night.

Onwards.

TEAM: Jupp, McLaughlin, Pearson (Magida), German (Russell), Shaw, Dunn, Hincks (Whyatt), Tongue, Noar, M Sherrington, C Sherrington. SUBS: Piggott (gk), Whyatt, Russell, Magida, Tosum.

Ben Jupp receiving his Goalkeeper of the Month Award from the Hallmark Security League's Ian Williams before kick-off