Ten-Man Northumbria Miss Out

A fantastic first half preceded a miserable second half as Team Northumbria lost 3-1 to Marske United.

The trip to the Tees Valley looked like it could be a fruitful one for TN in the first 45 minutes as Ben Dibb-Fuller put the visitors ahead from the spot after 25 minutes.

However, after a rash challenge from David Webster on the stroke of half time resulted in a red card, and 10-man TN couldn’t handle the Seasiders in the second half.

“We were by far the better team in the first half,” said head coach Colin Stromsoy.

“Given the quality of the team we were playing against, it was the best 45 minutes we’ve played all season.

“Marske are looking to win the league and they’ve got the players and the ability to do so.

“We should have been better in front of goal and we could have gone in at half time more than one up.

“Failing to score seems to be our Achilles heel this season without a doubt. We need to continue to work hard on it.

“Saying that, the combination play between Sam Read and Dibb-Fuller resulting in the penalty was brilliant.

“Clearly the red card changed the game and David will be very disappointed. He’s there to bring experience into the team and the truth is he acted rashly.

“However, having 10 men isn’t the end of a game, far from it. Unfortunately we started the second half very poorly and there’s no getting around that.

“We’ve done that a couple of times this season, even in the game we won against Durham – it’s something we must address.

“Overall, I was delighted with our first half performance and the execution of the game play was fantastic.

“The second half we didn’t play at our best and we’ll be looking to Wednesday’s BUCS game against Birmingham to come out and show some improvement.”