Scunthorpe United 2-0 Port Vale
Glanford Park
Carling Cup third round - Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Listen live and read a downloadable matchday programme on The Iron Player
END-OF-MATCH
Scunthorpe United 2 Port Vale 0
The one thing that matters in cup ties is getting through. The fact that United have played a period of extra-time won't matter that much in the grand scheme of things, even if it is unwelcome just now. On a positive spin, they will take heart from the fitness they've shown in during this prolonged match.
They've also created a whole host of chances, which on another day, I'm sure would have gone in, and created a much more emphatic scoreline. The draw for Round Four, which United have now made for the first time in the history of the club, takes place on Saturday. Unfortunately, it's made during the course of the game with Doncaster Rovers, at 12.15. United will be joined in the draw (for certain) by the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal. Chelsea and Manchester United will be there too, one would suspect. And Scunthorpe United will have a one in fifteen chance of playing one of those clubs.
SECOND-HALF EXTRA-TIME
27 Minutes: Sam Slocombe makes a great save from a one-on-one situation. Then there's a standing ovation as a United player is subbed. Sub by United - Michael O'Connor replaced by Sam Togwell.
24 Minutes: A passage of attacking play ends with Martyn Woolford sending a low right-footed shot into Chris Martin's gloves. Martin has made alot of saves tonight. He was at fault for the second goal, but has done a fair bit to keep the score down tonight.
23 Minutes: A tackle by Gareth Owen sends Martyn Woolford to the floor. It was a tackle made purely out of frustration (United are doing a good job of retaining the ball at the moment) and he makes his way into the book as a result. Port Vale are pretty lucky to have eleven on the pitch still I'm thinking.
19 Minutes: Port Vale hammer four efforts at the United goal in quick succession. All but one United of United's eleven are back in the box at the time, which is fortunate. The first three are deflected, the fourth is converted over the bar in rugby-like fashion.
17 Minutes: A left-footed shot is smacked at goal by Jonathan Forte. Chris Martin has to strecth, but manages to save.
16 Minutes: Sub by Scunthorpe - just as the game gets up and running again. Paul Hayes earns a rest. Martyn Woolford gets a chance to run at a tired Vale defence.
HALF-TIME EXTRA-TIME
Scunthorpe United 2 Port Vale 0
The teams do not leave the pitch, they instead engage in a straight swap around. Speaking of straight, this should be a straightforward victory now for United, if there is such a thing. I hope I haven't jinxed it by saying that. Touch wood!
FIRST-HALF EXTRA-TIME
12 Minutes: The Valiant's haven't given up hope just yet. A long-range effort was just had by Robert Taylor, but it flicked off a defender, up, and over.
9 Minutes: Jonathan Forte hits a shot on the turn. It deflects off a defender, and is heading towards the bottom-corner before Chris Martin's outstretched arm nicks the ball.
6 Minutes: Goal for Scunthorpe - Grant McCann plays a one-two with Paul Hayes in the area. He then slips a right-footed shot towards goal, which despite lacking power, slides under Chris Martin. Jonathan Forte stands on the line, and tries to get a touch on it, but goodness knows if he does or not - still, he might try and claim it. It's initially credited to McCann; but I feel Forte might have something to say on the matter!
Scunthorpe United 2 Port Vale 0
4 Minutes: "We're going to Wembley". That's the chant flying off the terraces - I haven't heard that at Glanford Park for all of four months!
2 Minutes: Goal for Scunthorpe - Michael O'Connor shoots; but it takes a wicked deflection. It wrong-foots Chris Martin, and gives United the lead. The deflection was off Hayes, who will take the credit for the goal.
Scunthorpe United 1 Port Vale 0
1 Minute: Sub by Vale - Stockley, one of the cautioned Vale players, is replaced by Adam Yates.
FULL-TIME
Scunthorpe United 0 Port Vale 0
United still have the option of making two changes, but the area where they need rejuvinating (in attack) they have a shortage of options. Adam Boyes is on the bench, but I'm not sure if Nigel will be willing to use the young forward just yet. Instead he might opt to bring on some fresh legs in the midfield engine room before long. Sam Togwell could come on and freshen things up a little, and also add a little bite to the game.
SECOND-HALF
92 Minutes: Michael O'Connor spins a corner into the box. He drops it with radar-like precision for Jordan Spence at the back-post. Spence moves to the ball, and attempts to side-foot it home. He drops to the floor in dismay before he even sees it spew wide.
90 Minutes: Spence has the ball on the right, he strides forward, hitting a shot during one of his long and calculated steps. It's dropping, but not in time to beat the crossbar.
89 Minutes: Forte gathers the ball on the edge of the eighteen yard area. He quickly lays it from his right foot onto his left, and slots an effort towards the bottom-corner of goal. It rolls narrowly wide. Three minutes of additional time are to be played.
86 Minutes: Vale go close. I can't see who hits it, as I was typing at the time, but he smacks a lethal looking effort towards goal from inside the area, which fires back off a United defender, and we're off the hook.
85 Minutes: Spence progresses down the wing. He's moving through the gears, looking like the proverbial man on a mission. He eventually gets a cross in, but he mis-hits it, and it trickles out at the corner flag.
83 Minutes: Vale win a corner. Grant McCann, the first hurdle as it were, heads it away.
81 Minutes: Sub by Vale - Robert Taylor comes on. He takes the place of Haldane.
79 Minutes: McCann sends in a corner. It's not a great ball, but David Mirfin hassles the Port Vale defence, and wins another corner when he forces Chris Martin into carrying the ball out of bounds. The next corner is better. But Vale defend it better too. Still the deadlock remains.
78 Minutes: Sub by Vale - Simon Richman takes the place of Doug Loft.
77 Minutes: Marcus Williams drops a cross into the Port Vale area. They defend it comically, but Hayes, Forte and co. are loacted in awkward positions - away from where the ball has fallen, and can't capitalise.
73 Minutes: Woolford and Togwell can be seen performing warm-ups down the touchline. The only change made so-far was an enforced one by United - when they introduced Slocombe.
72 Minutes: United win a free-kick after McCann is tripped. Despite it's offensive position it comes to nothing. The shot from it is sent clear of the bar.
65 Minutes: United are making the better chances, I can say that with certainty. However, Vale are not out of this game. United are starting to push further forward, but will need to stay on their toes at the back, an area where I feel they stand a chance of becoming suceptible, via counter-attacks. Vale, by the way, now have four players on yellow cards. They are Fraser, Stockley, Griffith and Haldane - in chronological order. I don't usually keep tally, but with four players on yellows; in comparison to none from United, it may proove to be a significant factor in deciding the outcome of the game.
62 Minutes: Hayes gets the ball on the edge of the box. He backheels it into the path of Sparrow, who receives it, despite the abundance of bodies in the area. Sparrow slams an effort at goal - surely the moment - but no, Chris Martin beats it away.
58 Minutes: Williams flies down the line, then glides a neat cross into the box. McCann connects, but under the weight of Tommy Fraser leap on top of him can't do much. McCann ends up on the floor. Some officials would have deemed that a penalty, I'm sure.
57 Minutes: Free-kick. Josh Wright. Thirty-ish yards. Close but wide.
55 Minutes: An angled ball flies into the box via the feet of O'Connor. It's tossed in the direction of Forte, but under pressure (to be honest, I say pressure, but it looked more like a tug) from Gareth Owen, he can't connect.
53 Minutes: The crowd are growing restless. There was always a danger of Vale frustrating United this evening. They're playing physically, and upsetting United. The sooner the Iron can fathom a goal; the better.
49 Minutes: Jonathan Forte kicks an effort wide from close-range. He was sandwiched between two players and the goalkeeper, but I'm pretty sure he'll be dissapointed with that. It was a miss, in all honesty.
47 Minutes: The team from Stoke are threatening. Sam Stockley just poked a cross into the box, and if it wasn't for the alertness of Jordan Spence, who managed to get a head to it, it would've fallen for one of the many Port Vale players waiting patiently in the area.
45 Minutes: Back underway. In the first attack Vale punt a long ball into the United box, and reap havoc. They ultimately get a corner, which O'Connor intercepts and brings away from danger.
HALF-TIME
Scunthorpe United 0 Port Vale 0
No scores. Neither side has really threatened, and I'm really jogging my mind to even think of a chance that had me on the edge of my seat. Brutal but honest.
I guess Vale did grab a goal in the opening minutes, which was chalked off (and rightly so) but apart from that I don't think anything of any real note has happened in this game. The major talking point for United fans at the interval will be the loss of Joe Murphy.
The Republic of Ireland goalkeeper has been in terrific form so-far this season, and everybody will be hoping that won't be out for any more time after tonight's game is over. That said, this game is a perfect opportunity for Sam Slocombe, a player with real potential, to show us all what he's capable of.
I spoke earlier in this Matchday Live article, in the section entitled 'Pre-Match', about the 0-0 draw here between United and Port Vale in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy a couple of years ago. I hope this game doesn't go the same way. I remember then-manager Brian Laws commenting that that game was like "watching paint dry"...
Attendance: 3,383
FIRST-HALF
44 Minutes: Ironically, Doug Loft lofts an attempt over the crossbar. From the edge of the area, he had a clear view of goal, but failed to control his effort, which soared up and up without showing any sign of falling, victim of the effects of gravity.
42 Minutes: O'Connor shoots from the resulting free-kick. He works Martin, in the Valiant's goal, but it was never realistically going to beat him. The best he could've hoped for was Martin spilling the ball at the feet of Hayes, who was lurking. Martin doesn't though, so it stays 0-0.
41 Minutes: Marcus Williams is the victim of a heavy challenge, and has to receive some attention from Alex Dalton. Port Vale's approach to this game is rather physical. Williams will be fine to continue.
35 Minutes: Sam Slocombe smothers the ball from at Haldane's feet. Haldane then hurdles over Slocombe, but flings a foot down at him while in mid-flight. Slocombe releases the ball, and the referee stops play. The fans behind the goal fume. They perceive that he tried to injure Slocombe, as United have no other goalkeeper on the bench. Slocombe gets back up; Haldane gets booed.
33 Minutes: United are doing the attacking at the moment. Williams just thrashed an effort wide from about twenty-five yards shy of goal. Williams is getting quite involved actually, he's at the heart of much of United's attacking play on the left. Okay, so that may sound obvious - but I just mean more so than usual.
30 Minutes: Josh Lillis has a twenty-eight day recall clause in his loan spell, I have just been informed. That means that if United need to, they will be unable to recall him back to Glanford Park until the start of next week. That means that if Murphy doesn't recover from his injury in tiem for Saturday, Slocombe will almost certainly be between the sticks.
25 Minutes: Sub by Scunthorpe - Sam Slocombe replaces Murphy. He gets a huge round of applause. The type that's usually reserved for a new signing. McCann takes the armband.
21 Minutes: Joe Murphy is in a collision with Lewis Harldane. Harldane and Murphy jumped for a ball together, and well, Harldane is a big lad, and Murphy landed awkwardly beside him, on his shoulder. After a couple of minutes it's decided that he'll have to be replaced. This is a huge moment for Sam Slocombe. Murphy leaves the field (on foot) to chants of "Ireland's number one!"
20 Minutes: The inside of the post is rattled by Michael O'Connor. He collects the ball in the centre of the park, brings it forward, picks his spot, and executes a shot. The loose ball's quickly cleared for a corner by Vale defenders.
14 Minutes: A throw-in is sent in the direction of Lewis Haldane, and he shows great composure to take the ball down and turn around in one swift and coordinated motion. He gets a shot away, which hits Mirfin, and almost creeps in at the near-post. Murphy eventually gathers though - thankfully, when it hit Mirfin the sting was eradicated from it.
8 Minutes: Jonathan Forte breaks. While fending off a rather zealous challenge he stnnhmnmhill manages to get a shot away, and I emphasise that he does nothing wrong - but Chris Martin still saves.
4 Minutes: Forte has the ball, and does well to slip it outside to Grant McCann. From the wing McCann crosses, but Hayes' headed connection is weak, and Chris Martin plucks the looping ball from the air.
2 Minutes: Vale have the ball in the net, but it won't count. Lewis Haldane gets in behind the United defence, accelerates away from Mirfin, and then props the ball up for Marc Richards. Richards fires home from close-range, but the linesman spares United's blushes.
1 Minute: The game starts. United are attacking towards the away end in the first period, as usual. Vale are starting with a 3-5-2. I think that incorporates Kris Taylor and Sam Stockley playing as wing-backs. Effectively that means they'll be playing 3-5-2 when attacking, and 5-3-2 when defending. But it will also mean that United have a great chance of exposing them down the flanks.
PRE-MATCH
It's Carling Cup time again. And United are playing host. Port Vale are the visitors. A place in the last sixteen and a money-spinning tie is the potential prize for the victor.
Port Vale currently reside around the mid-table mark in League 2, where they are without a win in their last two fixtures. United, in contrast, are unbeaten in three Coca-Cola Championship games. To reach this round of the competition, Vale have already beaten two 'steel city' side's in the form of Sheffield United and Wednesday. Both play their football in the same league as United. For that reason, Nigel Adkins has his 'steel town' players about the dangers of complacency.
When quizzed about whether his side would make the Fourth Round of the competition for the first ever time in club history, he retorted that "we know it's going to be very challenging... they play a very direct style of football, and we've got to make sure that we compete and we're up for it."
Glanford Park isn't very full tonight. That's probably because there are two home games scheduled to take place this week, and as the other one is against one of our local rivals, Doncaster Rovers; and tonight's game is on a nippy September evening, several supporters have decided to give this one a miss. Many will make their way down to see the Iron on Saturday instead.
For the crowd that has assembled, I get the impression that United will need to do something to ignite them. I think an early goal would do the trick - something that sparks the game to life. The longer this goes without a claret goal, the more restless they will become. Let us remember, United are expected to win tonight, comfortably. But football's not played on paper.
Some of you might recall the last time Vale visited Glanford Park in a cup competition, when they won. It would've been daylight robbery, had the game not been under the floodlights! For ninety straight minutes United controlled the Johnstone's Paint Trophy tie. The side from Stoke then luckily won 5-3 on penalties. Tonight's game will be decided in similar fashion if normal-time and then extra-time fail to produce a winner.
The team line-ups have now been confirmed and circulated to the press. Here they are:
Scunthorpe United: Murphy (c), Williams, Sparrow, McCann, Hayes, Forte, Mirfin, O'Connor, J. Wright, Spence, Canavan. Subs: Slocombe, A. Wright, Togwell, Byrne, Woolford, Morris, Boyes.
Port Vale: Martin, Stockley, Griffith, McCombe, Loft, Richards, Fraser (c), Collins, Owen, Taylor, Haldane. Subs: Taylor, Howland, Yates, Dodds, Richman, Lloyd Weston, McCrory.
Rob Jones and Gary Hooper are the two key absences from the United starting eleven. Hooper trundled off in Saturday's draw with Bristol and was never expected to take part in tonight's match, but Jones has succumbed to illness in the past 24 hours, and declared unfit to play by a doctor. Martyn Woolford has also suffered a slight injury in training this morning, and only makes the bench. He felt a slight tinge of pain in the general area of the gluteus during the session. A player who will be more pleased to make the bench is Andrew Wright. He's been out injured for the last month or so, and will be elated to get back into the eighteen.
It looks like United will begin with a 4-4-2, which seems to have become their conventional formation for home fixtures. Vale will be without former United loanee Geoff Horsfield. He's a player and assistant manager at Vale Park these days, but misses today's meeting with an injury.
There's about four minutes to go until kick-off now. As is customary at Glanford Park, the two sets of supporters are just collaborating in a pre-match rendition of 'Hi-Ho Silver Lining'. Port Vale are singing it the loudest of the two sets of fans, if truth be told. There's a decent amount of Vale followers located in the AMS Stand actually. They fill up over half of it, which isn't bad. They look like they'e up for this one...
SCENE-SETTER
The Iron will be seeking to go further than ever before in the Carling Cup on Tuesday night when they face Port Vale at Glanford Park.
A third round success against the Valiants will see Scunthorpe in the fourth round for the first ever time, with the draw for the next stage to take place on Saturday lunchtime, while United are in league action against Doncaster Rovers.
Scunthorpe have only been in the third round stage on three past occasions
It is the first time the club have made this stage of the competition in 21 years. Indeed, it is only the fourth time they've managed it in their history.
They saw off Chelsea in 1988 before losing to Bradford in a third round replay.
Arsenal thrashed the Iron 6-1 in 1968, while Sunderland beat us 2-0 in 1962.
Manager Nigel Adkins will be without striker Gary Hooper, who misses out through injury.
The frontman was forced off in the closing stages against Crystal Palace with a hamstring problem after coming on as a substitute.
Although the boss doesn't yet know how long his prolific frontman will be of action for, he says the former Southend player will definitely miss the clash with the Valiants. In-form Jonathan Forte will continue up front in his absence.
It is 'touch and go' whether winger Garry Thompson will shake off a foot problem and be in the 18-man squad.
Definitely out is Ben May, who is struggling with an ankle injury.
Andrew Wright (fractured metatarsal) looks set to continue his recovery in the reserves at home to Leeds United on Wednesday night, while Kenny Milne also misses out as he continues his rehabilitation from two knee operations.
Being at home, Adkins may well change from a 4-5-1 formation to a more conventional 4-4-2 but, as always, he is keeping his plans close to his chest.
Likely to miss out for Vale is former Iron loan striker Geoff Horsfield, now assistant to manager Micky Adams at Vale Park.
The targetman, who made 12 appearances during a loan spell in early 2008, picked up a groin strain in training on Friday and is expected to be out of action for the next fortnight.
Fellow forward James Lawrie has returned to training after having his appendix removed but this cup clash is tipped to come too soon for him, while goalkeeper Joe Anyon continues to make progress with his recovery from a broken leg. Chris Martin will continue between the sticks.
The referee for the game is Steve Tanner.
