S-Club on song for Latics

Photo: PICTURES by TOM PICKLES

AND THAT MAKES TWO: Athletic midfielder Dale Stephens rifles the ball home.

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Athletic 2, Orient 0

Relief as Smalley and Stephens find goal-den touch

CRISIS? What crisis?

One swallow doesn’t make a summer and goodness knows, with the weather of late nobody is getting carried away on that score.

This Athletic performance, though — which brought about a three points that won’t be so much welcomed by under-pressure manager Dave Penney as ushered in via a red carpet for a champagne reception — contained plenty of promise for similar home clashes to come.

Leyton Orient were no great shakes to say the very least, extending a winless run to seven matches.

But Athletic played their part in making Geraint Williams’ men look ordinary by playing some fluent, attacking football that helped create a host of excellent chances.

That’s right: fluent, attacking football. The Boundary Park crowd — a fair portion of whom were, it is fair to guess by the comments regularly left on the Chronicle website, ready to explode with frustration were Athletic to disappoint — almost didn’t know quite how to react to the goals they were presented with.

Such moments have been at a premium this season, so when Deane Smalley finished off a neat one-two with Pawel Abbott to put the home team ahead after 20 minutes, it was a strange moment.

After a few milliseconds of the goal sinking in, the home supporters did break into rightful applause for the recalled Smalley’s second goal of the campaign.

While results have not gone Athletic’s way recently, many of the performances have been positive.

The main difference here was that Smalley’s strike found the net. With a rare lead to play with, Athletic soon got into their stride and stretched the Orient defence with intelligent movement and some slick passing.

And once the excellent Dale Stephens had netted the second nine minutes into the second half, it seemed that more goals were forthcoming for the dominant home team.

An injury to lively on-loan striker Daniel Nardiello stifled those hopes and once he had departed, the game passed by without too many major incidents.

But with results elsewhere going the way of Penney’s men, mid-table security suddenly doesn’t seem so far away.

Athletic are now only three points off Brentford in 14th place, with at least a game in hand on the four sides above them in League One and with second-bottom Wycombe to come at Boundary Park on Saturday.

Abbott, who regularly linked with Chris Taylor and Nardiello to great effect, nearly set in his strike partner early on but for a timely block, prior to Orient’s best chance of the game.

It came when Jason Demetriou’s corner evaded everyone to find striker Jonathan Tehoue in space at the far post, but he couldn’t control his header which slipped well wide.

A minute later and Athletic were ahead.

Smalley cut in from the right touchline to drive at the defence and even though Abbott’s return ball to him appeared to favour the goalkeeper, the Athletic man managed to get there first to poke the ball under his body for a well-worked opener.

Nardiello almost made it two within seconds, his low shot well held by the Orient custodian and Taylor’s low ball across the six-yard area evaded everyone as Athletic surged forward with confidence.

Abbott and Nardiello both forced Jones into further fingertip saves and the only surprise at half-time was that Athletic weren’t two or three goals to the good.

The home fans didn’t have to wait too long for the lead to be doubled, though.

Taylor did well to ignore the run of Abbott, who drifted into an offside position. The winger instead slipped in Stephens down the right of the Orient centre-backs, with the finish produced being both accurate and emphatic.

Orient responded with Aaron Doran slicing wide at the far post but the home side were still well on top.

Abbott was a whisker away from connecting with a Sean Gregan knock-down and Smalley blazed over at the far post before Nardiello was removed after turning his marker and almost laying on a goal for Abbott.

Athletic slightly went into their shells as an attacking force, mindful of just how important it was to protect their lead.

Still, Smalley had a chance when his far-post header was beaten out by Jones and the same man had a low effort smothered by the goalkeeper after a Stephens corner.

Orient would have got more change piling coppers into a rigged Blackpool penny sliding machine than their strikers got out of Hazell and Gregan, and the visitors barely threatened at all after the break.

Cameos for the returning Jon Worthington and young striker Tom Eaves rounded off a thoroughly satisfactory evening’s work for Athletic.

The trick now is to do likewise to Wycombe.




Latics’ next game: Saturday, Wycombe (H), Coca-Cola League One