Andy's a worry for Saunders

08 March 2010

By Richard Williams - The Leader

Dean Saunders is hoping the extent of striker Andy Mangan’s knee injury is not too serious.
Mangan went down clutching his knee in the final seconds of Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Ebbsfleet United at The Racecourse and required a stretcher to leave the pitch.

Although he was able to walk in the changing room area, Saunders admitted it is unlikely that the frontman, who had given Wrexham a first-half lead with his third goal for the club, will be able to play in tomorrow’s home clash against Altrincham.

And Saunders is keeping his fingers crossed that Mangan won’t spend a lengthy spell on the sidelines: “I think Andy has twisted his knee, I am not sure how bad it is,” he said. “He could walk into the dressing room at the end of the game but he went down very awkward, which is just our luck.

“We will wait and see how he is but I would be surprised if he was fit for tomorrow’s game.

“I hope it is not as bad as it could be, I hope it is just a little tweak on his knee.
“I thought he fell awkwardly and sometimes it takes a couple of days to actually work out what is actually wrong. But he scored a great goal today.”

Mangan opened the scoring in the 15th minute and Wrexham had numerous opportunities to add to their lead before the break.

Although they did not play as well in the second half, more chances went begging as Reds paid the price for not killing the game off when relegation-threatened Ebbsfleet equalised in the 69th minute.

And Saunders knows Wrexham should be taking three points after creating so many chances: “I am saying the same things to them,” he said.

“It should have been all over by half-time. We scored a great goal, something we have worked on, and then it was deja-vu. Balls go in, chances are missed.

“It should have been done-and-dusted at half-time.

“And then we came out second half and had a few more chances. I think we had 14 chances today, seven on target and seven off target.

“It is really frustrating, You must be getting bored of the things I am saying to you, and I am getting bored of saying the same old things,” added Saunders.

“But anybody who goes to see the match will see it really is unbelievable that we are coming away from games without points after playing well.

“We played well first half, we looked really dangerous and we were getting bodies into the box.

“Once again it is a punch on the chin, a big punch on the chin, because we did really need to win.”

Admitting that he could see Wrexham were becoming edgy because they had failed to kill the game off.

Saunders said: “Half-way through the second half, I thought we started to panic a little bit because of consistently missing chances.

“The defenders start thinking ‘here we go’.

“You have only got to make once mistake and you leave yourself wide open.
“At one stage Ebbsfleet got on top of us for a ten minute spell and we might have lost the game.

“And then we had three chances in the last two or three minutes, in the six-yard box, and missed them all.”

But Saunders was disappointed with the manner of Ebbsfleet’s goal: “It is difficult to criticise the players after a while, especially the defenders,” he said.

“Silvio Spann has let the ball go over his head for the goal, he was miles away from it.

“Their lad mis-kicks it and it drops to him again, and he squeezes it in through Sam Russell’s legs.

“But it you don’t put teams to bed, then every defender who makes a mistake is going to cost us.

“That should have been 4-1, and then that chance – we don’t even talk about it.”