Match Report

A late Kyron Gordon own goal stole the points from Rochdale AFC’s grasp, and gave Sutton United a first victory in April.

A goalless first 87 minutes saw both sides have a handful of chances, with Siju Odelusi and Lewis Simper notably going close late on, but the U’s couldn’t find a way through the Dale defence.

This would be until the 87^th minute though, when a long Jack Sims ball was flicked on by Vinnie Tume into the path of Ashley Nadesan, who’s touch on the inside of Ethan Ebanks-Landell initially looked to get away from him, but subsequently took a wicked deflection off Gordon via an attempted challenge that ended up looping over Killian Barrett to fortuitously win Sutton the match.

Victory over Dale sees Sutton jump up to 12^th in the Vanarama National League table, and will be looking to build momentum with a trip to already-relegated Ebbsfleet United on Saturday.

Three changes to the starting XI saw Nadesan rewarded for his last gasp equaliser on Saturday, alongside Nana Boateng and Jack Wadham who each made their first league starts since the beginning of March.

Although Steve Morison will have hoped that last weekend’s late leveller would spur them onto a fast start against Rochdale, it was the visitors who produced the first opening of proceedings and could have gone in front after three minutes. Aidan Barlow swung a free kick into the danger area, where Kairo Mitchell managed to flick the ball towards the bottom corner and force Jack Sims into a fine outstretched save to tip the close-range effort wide.

Despite bossing the majority of the ball early on, Dale almost gifted Sutton an opener when Liam Hogan slipped in his own penalty area and conceded possession to Kain Adom, who was unable to take advantage as he fired into the side netting, before Lewis Simper tried his luck from distance and sent a powerful drive over the crossbar.

This was followed by a couple of glorious openings for Sutton. First, Hogan headed a long ball from deep short to Killian Barrett and allowed Nadesan to pounce, before racing through and only seeing the chance break down when he failed to keep the ball under control. However, the U’s responded well, with Simper intercepting another loose pass, this time from Barrett, before finding Nadesan who picked out Boateng, who showed some neat trickery to evade the crowd of Rochdale bodies and then produced a neat backheel to tee up Simper, who won a corner. However, Barrett was able to gather the set piece, giving Rochdale the chance to reset.

This then preceded a couple of poor efforts on goal for the visitors, with Barlow and Corey Edwards both striking well over the crossbar. Those chances had sandwiched a glimmer of hope for Jimmy McNulty’s side, with Mitchell deflecting Sims’ goal kick into the path of Barlow, who returned the favour and teed up Dale’s number nine, who calmly rolled the ball towards the far post, but watched as it agonisingly trickled wide of the target.

Rochdale continued to see the better of the chances though, with a goalmouth scramble then seeing Sutton defend with their lives to keep the score goalless. Sam Beckwith delivered a low ball into the box that evaded Barlow but allowed Tobi Adebayo-Rowling to keep the chance alive, laying it off to Gordon who saw a couple of shots blocked before Alex Woodyard finally cleared the danger.

Beckwith continued to be a threat down the left-hand side though, and slid a ball through to Mitchell minutes later, forcing Sims to come off his line and produce a superb point-blank stop to deny the visiting forward, bringing the half to a close.

The second half got underway with changes for both sides, with Siju Odelusi replacing Woodyard, along with a swap in the away dugout seeing Hogan withdrawn in place of Ethan Ebanks-Landell.

And it was the latter’s defensive partner who came close to drawing first blood just minutes after the restart, with Adebayo-Rowling teeing up Gordon who struck over the crossbar as the visitors looked to produce a similar start to the first half.

This preceded some neat interplay by the hosts, eventually leading to Wadham stinging the midriff of Beckwith with a powerful drive, and was then followed by a couple of defensive scares by the visitors that almost saw Sutton take the lead in incredibly fortuitous fashion.

Ebanks-Landell got in the way of his own keeper when trying to gather a cross from the left and allowed Adom to recycle possession. The winger combined with Ryan Jackson who drove forward and swung the ball into the middle, which Barrett made a meal of and almost spilled it into his own net, but just managed to keep under control.

Ebanks-Landell almost made amends for his error though, getting on the end of a cross from the right after Harvey Gilmour had seen his initial delivery cleared, with the defender forcing Sims into a low stop.

In search of a winner, Morison opted to throw on academy graduate Vinnie Tume with a little over 20 minutes to go, replacing Adom, with Rochdale following suit as Ian Henderson was introduced in place of Barlow soon after.

Sutton then began to ramp up the pressure with around ten minutes to go, and almost broke the deadlock when Odelusi forced Barrett into a fingertip stop with a close-range header, shortly before Simper brilliantly got to the byline and saw an effort deflect behind, and was followed by a high effort from Boateng that just flew off target.

However, the U’s continued to push, and finally opened the scoring with just three minutes to go when Nadesan latched onto Tume’s flick-on and took a heavy touch on the inside of Ebanks-Landell, but saw Gordon’s attempted challenge deflect back off the forward and loop over Barrett to give Sutton a late lead, and soon all three points.

Sutton United: Sims; French, Ransom, Simper, Boateng (Vaz 89’), Wadham, Jackson, Woodyard (Odelusi 46’), Topallaj, Adom (Tume 67’). Subs n/u Muller, Kerbey.

Rochdale AFC: Barrett; Gordon, Gilmour, Mitchell, Rodney (Ayinde 81’), Adu-Poku (Allarakhia 56’), Adebayo-Rowling, Barlow (Henderson 71’), Edwards, Hogan (Ebanks-Landell 46’), Beckwith. Subs n/u Kingdon, Buyabu, Weston.

Referee: Matthew Russell

Attendance: 2,087(137 away)

Photo Credit: Paul Loughlin