Adam Le Fondre came closest to breaking the deadlock for Dale, with two efforts in the second half, but Dale were left frustrated by a stubborn Wrexham side who defended resolutely but lacked any initiative to win the game. Report now online.
| It was without doubt a frustrating afternoon, which
seemed to get considerably colder as it dragged on. Dale failed to build on
last week's win against Mansfield, as they failed to break down Wrexham's 47
man defence, which was helped by the woodwork and some dogged defending.
Wrexham were never in the game and you get the feeling that had they been
given a late penalty, they'd have only used it to play out time. But there were without doubt plenty of positives to come from the game from a Dale perspective, as Dale kept their second clean sheet in succession. Any point is one to be appreciated and there were individual performances that stood out, including a late cameo from a smiling Glenn Murray who was given massive encouragement by his team mates from the moment he stepped off the bench.
The game kicked off with the one change in the Dale line up, that coming with the surprising move to include Adam Le Fondre ahead of Glenn Murray. Everything during the week suggested that Murray would have started but Hill made the move to include Dale's leading scorer from the start.
The first half can be described simply by saying that Dale were in control from start to finish. Though whilst we were in control, and we had more possession than Amy Winehouse on a night out, we never really threatened or tested a Wrexham side which contained possibly the worst keeper in the division in Anthony Williams.
Of course, we weren't helped by a negative Wrexham side who came to Spotland like they were away at a back to back Champions League winning side with the hope of taking them back to North Wales in a replay, rather than away at a side eight or nine places above them in the League with a questionable home record. Things must have been bad for Wrexham for their supporters to accept this sort of showing.
Our best effort came from an Adam Rundle cross which was met in the centre by Alfie, who fired just wide after doing well to make space for himself.
With the exception of that, we had a number of half chances without doing anything to warrant getting out of your seat for.
The second half continued where the first half left off. Dale given lots of the ball, without really looking like scoring. The Wrexham defence continued to do their best to keep Dale out and whilst some of the Wrexham side would struggle to look at themselves in the mirror after this game, their defenders can most certainly keep their heads held high.
Dale switched things around as we pushed and pushed for the win. The highly ineffective Rundle was withdrawn with Glenn Murray pushed on as we went with a three man attack.
However, this change led to Wrexham's best spell in the game as they found more room on the pitch with our midfield down to just three men, and for a very short while, they looked like they might have come to Spotland to do the classic smash and grab that we've suffered so man times in the past. Fortunately, their most likely to score moment came via a Dale player rather than one of their own, as they had a brief moment of excitement following Russell misjudging and spilling a long range effort.
However, this didn't last long as Evil was withdrawn for Rory Prendergast, who in my opinion is the best crosser of the ball at the football club. It was a necessary switch, as the change to a three man midfield had not worked and full praise to Keith Hill for changing it back to 4-4-2 so soon.
In truth, Evil had a poor game and looked unlikely to add to his goal tally against his previous side. Perhaps there was too much desire on his part to silence the boos from some of the travelling Wrexham supporters, or perhaps this is the modern day Lee McEvilly. Keith Hill has spent a lot of time bigging up Evil this week, which might have been aimed at Evil to bring back the old Evil, or aimed at the board to find the necessary pennies to make Evil's move a permanent one. Whatever, performances like this won't convince anyone.
It looked like it was going to take something special if we were to break them down. And we almost had that through Le Fondre. Alfie, who once got four goals in a game against Wrexham, produced an audacious lob from the edge of the penalty box. It was one of those which was always going wide and never looked at all like going in. But the closer and closer it got, the more it looked a possibility. As it was, it hit the woodwork, and rebounded back into play and a more alert Dale side could have finished it off with Williams still dazzled by the floodlights trying to work out where the ball was.
Dale continued to press and certainly had Wrexham on the back foot for the remainder of the game. It was no doubt crossing the mind of Sam Russell that he could have left the field with fifteen minutes to go to escape the cold, and nobody would have noticed, especially the so called Wrexham forward line.
But anyway, we kept plugging away but you kind of knew that no matter how close we got, we were always going to suffer one of those afternoons. We nearly grabbed a late winner as Higginbotham and Le Fondre combined. Higginbotham's original effort was blocked before Alfie's follow up was cleared off the line.
However, it was not to be, and we had to make do with a point. But as mentioned earlier, much as we may well have left Spotland both freezing and disappointed, there was much to be positive about, and we are a side which may not be firing on all cylinders, but slowly but surely things are coming together. There's still the odd bit of tweaking required, but don't rule out a second half of the season push like last year.
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