Tisdale on the win at Accrington “It was a terrific game”
It’s been a while since an Exeter City win, mid October in fact was the 4-0 win at Scunthorpe. But yesterday at Accrington 
a 3-2 win over an improving Accrington Stanley sent away the wet and cold 120 Grecians very happy.
In the end it wasn’t an emphatic win, which at 3-0 after 24 minutes it looked it would be. Paul Tisdale rang the changes, notably he started young Tom Nichols up front with Alan Gow and it paid dividends within 6 minutes. A delightful chip by Tom Nichols put us 1-0 up, followed 5 minutes later by some delightful play by Sercombe with Nichols and Gow set up Nichols for the simplest of chances we took to make 2-0. Then on 24 minutes Gow took advantage from Stanley’s poor defence with a shot from the edge of the box to make it 3-0.
To change the half time team talk by Beattie and Tisdale, Stanley pulled one back with Murphy taking the merest of 
touches to deflect a cross in to the net. Then 5 minutes in to the 2nd half, Naismith had a free header to make it 3-2. Gow had a chance to make it safer with a penalty on 55 minutes but the keeper did well to keep the ball out.
An uneasy last 25 minutes for City fans, as at times the Grecians hung on to their slender lead. A great double save by Artur Krysiak destroyed the hope of Stanley fans. With the substitutions that Tisdale made Exeter City took control of the game, and despite efforts there was no way through for Stanley.
A well deserved victory.
| Accrington Stanley 2 | Exeter City 3 | |
| 26 Bettinelli | 01 Krysiak | |
| 16 Hunt | 02 Butterfield | |
| 27 Naylor | 03 Woodman | |
| 04 Joyce | 35 Gill | |
| 05 Aldred | 04 Bennett | |
| 06 Winnard | 15 Moore-Taylor | |
| 11 Naismith | 07 Sercombe | |
| 02 Murphy | 29 Grimes | |
| 17 Gray | 20 Nichols | |
| 09 Webbe | 10 Gow | |
| 15 Mingoia | 11 Davies | |
| Substitutes | Substitutes | |
| 03 Liddle | 05 Baldwin | |
| 07 McCartan | 19 O’Flynn | |
| 08 Richardson | 21 Gosling | |
| 10 Hatfield | 22 Keohane | |
| 19 Wilson | 25 Parkin | |
| 20 Windass | 30 Pym | |
| 44 Bowerman | 32 Wheeler | |
| Ref: Eddie Ilderton | ||
| Att: 1,219 with 120 travelling Grecians | ||
| Goalscorers | ||
| Accrington Scanley | Murphy 38′ Naismith 50′ | |
| Exeter City | Nichols 6′, 11′ Gow 24′ | |
| Substitutions | ||
| Accrington Stanley | Bowerman on for Gray 78′ and McCartan on for Webber 85′ | |
| Exeter City | Wheeler on for Grimes 53′, Keohane on Gow 58′ and Parkin on for Nichols – 83′ | |
| Discipline | ||
| Accrington Stanley | Naylor and Winnard Booked | |
| Exeter City | ||
| Match Stats | ||
| ASFC | ECFC | |
| 51 | Possession (%) | 49 |
| 5 | Shots on target | 5 |
| 7 | Shots off target | 3 |
| 13 | Corners | 3 |
| 11 | Fouls | 8 |
| 2 | Yellow cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red cards | 0 |
Match Reports
Exeter – http://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/fixtures-results/match-report/index.aspx?matchid=3631692
Stanley – http://accringtonstanley.co.uk/2013/12/2622/
Cheggerspics – http://exetercityfc.newsprints.co.uk/search/scu/p/u/214434/1/accrington%20vs%20exeter%20city%20lge%20two
90 second highlights on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE4FKAbEpN0
A fans view of the penalty save from Gow – http://youtu.be/zq0AYRYOkeM
Quotes
Tisdale on the official site
We didn’t make it easy, but I would have been surprised had it become easy. Even with three goals, whatever you do find when you play here is that they can really turn the heat up and they did that today.
It was a terrific game and I’m so pleased we’ve won it because we’ve not won a game for a while. It was a big win.
We had a rotten November – we’ve had two draws and needed a win so it gets us going again. We’re capable of winning games but we haven’t been doing it recently, so it was a really big win.
He continued: “It was a really good experience for our young players. They’ve learned a lot from it and they would hopefully have relished it, and it’ll give them more experience going into next time it happens.
I’m delighted to score a couple of goals, but more important was to win. We hadn’t won for a little while off the back of a couple of draws. It was a good feeling, so hopefully we can get a run going.
It’s good fun battling up there when you’ve got big centre-halves that are wondering what’s going on. I enjoy that just as much as scoring really. I saw Jordan [Moore Taylor] was going to get a free header so I ran forward, and the centre-halves didn’t read it quite as well,” explained Nichols of the opening goal.
The goalkeeper came off his line so I thought it was going to go round him, but then he stopped so I thought ‘here’s my chance’ – I played a left-foot swinger, and in it goes!
Gowser flicked it through for the second one, and the keeper showed me one side and gambled the other way – so I just passed it into the corner.
James Beattie said on his team’s defeat
We need to start again and learn from the mistakes we made. Defenders Dean Winnard and Tom Aldred have been magnificent for eight weeks and they can’t be judged on an indifferent 25 minutes.
Goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli has also been superb and he held his hands up and took responsibility for the third goal.
We cannot dwell on it but we have to address what we did wrong and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again.
Christmas is a massive period and we have got to remain upbeat even though we are disappointed at this moment.
