Log in or Register
Tonbridge Angels 1
1
Shields (12')
0 Salisbury
0

Solid Angels take the honours

Tonbridge Angels maintained their unbeaten start and collected a third successive clean sheet with a solid single goal win over newly-promoted Salisbury in front of a boisterous Longmead crowd of 1,252.

Solid is not the most exciting of descriptive words but it perfectly illustrates a performance that saw Sean Shields give the Angels an early lead with his fifth goal of the season and then limit their visitors to one shot at Toby Steward’s goal.

Jay Saunders commented after the game: “I thought we were solid, first and foremost. I wanted to make sure we were solid behind the ball, on the back of two clean sheets, we wanted to make sure we had that as a platform. We started the game fantastic, we had spells in the game when we were really good and spells when we could have been better on the ball. But, all-in-all, it is a home win and good to get back-to-back wins.”

On a grey afternoon, Saunders named an unchanged side from the one take took all three points from a splendid performance at Farnborough with just one change on the bench with Fumnaya Shomotun taking the place of Scott Wagstaff.

Tonbridge roared out of the blocks, taking the game to their visitors with an early effort by Trevan Robinson comfortably saved by Salisbury goalkeeper, Ryan Gosney. But, on 12 minutes, they were in front. Liam Vincent slung in a cross from the left that carried beyond the far post where it was brilliantly retrieved by Crossley Lema, hooking the ball back from the byline over his shoulder into the centre of the goal where it was collected by Shields to make space before firing into the corner.

Salisbury responded well to the goal and began to get some possession before Shields won the ball in midfield, drove forward but his shot failed to trouble Gosney.

Chances were limited for both sides before the break with Taylor Maloney and Vincent having efforts on goal that left Gosney untroubled.

An early second half effort from Josh Hedges had Toby Steward diving across his goal but the shot drifted a yard or so wide of the post.

A 67th minute cross from Jeremy Santos saw Shields diving in for a near post header that was saved by Gosney and three minutes later the same combination found Shields at the left hand edge of the box, but unbalanced as he shot, it sailed wide.

The Angels mostly controlled the closing stages with efforts from a Santos free kick and an Abraham effort and had a scare with 10 minutes remaining when their post was struck but a flag was already raised and would not have counted.

Tonbridge’s start of six unbeaten games is the first time since 2018/19 when they went seven games without defeat but they have someway to go to emulate the 2003/04 side who went all the way through to December before losing, a total of 17 games.

But, with the word of the day, it has been a solid start!





Published Sunday 1st September 2024