Grecians hold league leaders to a draw at St James Park
Exeter City held npower League 2 leaders Gillingham to a 0-0 draw at St James Park with a strong all-round performance.
The defence were rarely troubled throughout the fixture, with the Grecians’ best chances coming in the first period – however Jamie Cureton couldn’t quite profit in his personal duel with Gills stopper Stuart Nelson.
A hooked effort in the second period by Danny Kedwell was the closest that the Gills came to breaking the deadlock midway through the second period, but eventually the result was another entertaining goalless draw for the Grecians.
There were two switches to Paul Tisdale’s starting XI when the League 2 leaders turned up at St James Park – Mark Molesley, returning from suspension, was given a starting berth in midfield, as well as youngster Jake Gosling. That meant for a seat on the bench for Steve Tully and Jimmy Keohane.
On a bitterly cold evening, the game got off to a lively start and the visitors won a succession of corners in the opening minutes, which City dealt with well. The Grecians might have profited when a high ball into the channel by Craig Woodman as Leon Legge and Stuart Nelson had a breakdown in communication – but the defender eventually recovered well.
Woodman then hit a rather optimistic effort from 30 yards on his right foot which didn’t trouble Nelson, and soon after he released Cureton again with a ball that the striker controlled and poked goalwards without any backlift, but Nelson saved low.
The same ball time and again was catching out the Gills’ rear-guard, and Cureton didn’t realise how much time he had when the left-back found him once again with the raking straight ball – the forward tried a flicked effort on the volley when he might have controlled, and it floated wide.
Gillingham were barely showing signs of the kind of team that merited being top of the table, as City camped out in the visitors’ half and looked by far the more threatening of the teams.
For the full match report go to: http://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/fixtures-results/match-report/?matchid=351...
