Motormen Crash to Wanderers

Redbridge hosted their 4th consecutive home match in 7 days looking to take maximum points after already beating Basildon, Grays and Gorleston. Standing in their way was Ipswich Wanderers as the two sides were meeting for the very first time.

Bradley Bennett and Jack Chawner returned to the starting eleven whilst Ayo Odukoya dropped to the bench with Solomon Ogunwomoju taking his place.

It was a positive start for the home side and took them just seven minutes to go ahead, Soumen Nandi in space on the left was able to float over a cross finding the unmarked Ogunwomoju who firmly headed home from close range , his 9th goal of the season and with that takes him to leading goal scorer this season.

Soon after the same two players combined again however this time it was a much deeper cross and OGUNWOMOJU was unable to control his header which drifted wide.

Redbridge then were handed a lucky escape , Nandi losing the ball in the middle of the park to Rasheed Salau who ran into space at goal but Connor Wheatley did well to stand tall and make the stop pushing the ball away for a corner.

SALAU continued to look like Ipswich's most dangerous outlet , he showed good strength to hold off a defender before seeing a shot deflected away for another corner

It was no real surprise soon after to see the equaliser which had been coming and indeed it came from that man Salau, he was able to cut inside Elliott before opening his body up to curl a lovely effort past the diving Wheatley and into the top corner of the net.

How goals change games and after a shaky start it was now the away side who were controlling possession and looking comfortable , shouts for a penalty however fell on deaf ears as Salau fell to the ground in the area.

Redbridge did come forward as Louie Johnson tried his luck from range but his shot was always rising whilst Jack Ladbrook headed over for Ipswich as the half time whistle was blown.

The first chance of the second period fell to Johnson but he was unable to keep the ball down which was bobbling and again could only succeed in firing well over. Redbridge were trying to get forward however were becoming increasingly frustrated at being caught offside.

From a long Elliott throw the ball dropped to Nandi on the edge of the area and he drilled a shot narrowly wide.

The game then turned on it's head as two quick fire goals followed from the away side , the first appeared to come from a Wheatley error before a nicely finished effort found the corner of the goal.

Redbridge in shock at conceding those two quick goals almost immediately responded as Craig Brand made a good diving save to deny Johnson before skipper Lewis Clark headed just wide of the upright

The home side did almost pull a goal back, Bennett putting over a cross superbly met by Oscar Shelvey-Negus on the volley and although it beat Brand the ball bounced down off the cross bar and away to safety.

With 7 minutes of additional time signalled Redbridge continued to come forward but in doing so left themselves open at the back and they were further exposed when substitute Teon Leggett had the simple task of rolling the ball into an empty net to inflict further salt into the wounds.

In the end it was a rather lacklustre performance from the hosts who looked like they had run out of steam after playing 5 games in 10 days and an end to their good recent run however with the reverse league fixture taking place this weekend it could possibly be a chance for immediate redemption

report by Adam Silver