Wycombe Wanderers returned to winning ways in the league as they beat a struggling Port Vale side, who are sat at the very bottom of the League One table, 4-0 at Adams Park on Saturday.
Anything less than a win today would’ve been a disappointment, especially after the defeat against Leyton Orient last weekend. Vale only registering one win in their last five before their trip to Buckinghamshire.
While the visitors still have two games in hand over many other teams in, including 21st-placed Exeter City, they lie 12 points away from safety and their relegation is seemingly more of a certainty now.
Meanwhile, Wanderers’ needed the three points to keep their play-off hopes alive going into the final six games of this season.
Taylor Allen missed out today through suspension after his sending off at Leyton Orient last weekend, with Niall Huggins taking his place in the squad after Jack Grimmer shift to centre-back.
Declan Skura made his return to the squad and was named on the bench after returning from his loan spell at Yeovil Town earlier in the month.
Michael Duff once again chose to stick with Will Norris in goal, despite growing pressure on the former Portsmouth keeper. It was announced earlier this week that Dan Casey faced a setback in his recovery from injury, and once again missed out, whilst Cauley Woodrow made his 400th career appearance.
Wanderers started the game well, and immediately put the visitors on the backfoot. Before today, they had conceded a total of six in their last five. However, there was a stoppage shortly after ten minutes, as Elijah Campbell replaced an injured Jaheim Headley for Port Vale.
Wycombe’s first real chance came from Woodrow, whose header was collected by the keeper. The Chairboys continued to attack as Fred Onyedinma was next with a shot from the right-hand side of the box but it was deflected and out for a corner.
It wasn’t long after this that Wycombe broke the deadlock through Woodrow in his 400th senior appearance. The Luton Town loanee took advantage of a mix-up between Joe Gauci and Cameron Humphreys, calmly slotting his effort into the back of the net.
Wanderers preserved their 1-0 lead into the break, but would’ve been disappointed that they hadn’t added a few more to their tally in the opening 45 minutes.
The visitors were the ones to start the second 45 minutes on the front foot, as they got close to netting an equaliser through Ethon Archer, but his effort flew over the bar.
Vale’s Jordan Lawrence-Gabriel then struck the base of the post from an Andre Gray cross, which had alarm bell ringing for the Chairboys, who’d taken their foot off the gas in the opening exchanges of the second half.
With 20 minutes left in the contest, Wycombe got a timely second goal. A Caolon Boyd-Munce corner deflected into the path of Woodrow, who played in Connor Taylor to score his first goal for for the club, topping off another exceptional performance from the big defender.
Even after Wanderers had made the game more comfortable for themselves by extending their lead to two, they didn’t seem satisfied and continued to attack, which is great to see considering what’s happened previously when they had tried to see a game out by sitting back.
Substitute Luke Harris played in Onyedinma five minutes from time, who caught the keeper off his line and coolly dinked it over to make it 3-0.
Junior Quitirna made it four as his curled effort passed the keeper in the final few minutes of the match and after six additional minutes, the referee blew for full-time.
It was a brilliant performance overall and it was great to see Wanderers return to winning ways after the disappointment that was Leyton Orient away.
Connor Taylor was named Player of the Match and I would personally have to agree with that. Over the past couple of games he’s really taken the chance he’s been given well and redeemed himself after a shaky start to life at Wycombe for the former Bristol Rovers defender.
