Williamson: Poor finishing cost us

Nov 19 2007 by David Triggs, Chester Chronicle

BOBBY Williamson bemoaned Chester City’s poor finishing after watching his team slump to a third successive defeat on Saturday.

The Blues were beaten 2-0 at the Deva Stadium by League Two leaders MK Dons, who were indebted to keeper Willy Gueret for making three excellent second-half saves.

The Frenchman kept out powerful drives from John Murphy and Kevin Ellison, as well as saving a penalty by Simon Yeo.

Chester boss Williamson said: ‘MK Dons played very well, especially in the first half, but it was very much a game of two halves. We dominated the second period and created the best chances, and on the day we couldn’t put them away.

‘If you don’t take your chances, obviously you’re not going to win anything.’

Williamson acknowledged that Gueret had played well, but added: ‘What we hit, we hit at him and made it look easy for him. Big John Murphy has got a great opportunity to score. If he mis-kicks the ball slightly, he probably puts it in the back of the net. John’s done everything right but the keeper’s made a good save. He’s made a great save from Kevin Ellison and also saved the penalty so that’s three.’

The defeat saw Chester slip from fourth in the table to sixth, seven points behind the Dons. But Williamson still feels the race for promotion will be an open one.

He said: ‘Anybody can beat anybody on their day. We could have won that game or got something out of it if we take our chances, but we didn’t do it.

‘Give credit to MK Dons, they’ve come here and scored two goals and taken the three points. They deserve that. That’s why they’re up at the top end of the league.

‘You just don’t know how the game would have panned out if we had got a goal back. If we’d have got a goal, we could have asked questions, but we never managed to get that first goal and it was disappointing to see the game peter out the way it did.’

Williamson was unhappy with the way Chester conceded the second goal – a close-range tap-in by Jemal Johnson.

The Scotsman said: ‘I felt it was a cheap goal to give away and there were a few guys who never did their jobs properly. ‘I’ll analyse that later and hopefully we can learn from it.’

Watching from the stands on Saturday was England striker Michael Owen, who had picked up a thigh injury while on international duty in Austria the night before. The Chester-born star was at the Deva to watch his brother-in-law Richie Partridge playing for the Blues.