City draw at home

Reece Cole saves a point for Exeter

Exeter City made a slight improvement from recent results and performances, holding Wigan Athletic to a home draw which was hard fought but difficult to watch for the most part. After a barren first half, Wigan took the lead on 50 minutes through a Dale Taylor penalty, before City responded with a trademark Reece Cole volley twenty minutes later. The home side upped the tempo from then on, but neither they or the Latics could find a winner. This made in the end for a fair result, given the lack of quality or energy from either side throughout.

Exeter’s Joel Colwill did have a chance to break the deadlock ten minutes in, but endeavored to blast his shot well over the bar from just outside the box. The corner routine and clever hold-up play from Josh Magennis which created the chance had been the very first action of any note in a slow first twenty minutes or so.

While the game became a little more energetic as the first half went on, there was next to no goalmouth action. A few promising counter attacks ended in overhit crosses on Exeter’s part, and a speculative Maleace Asamoah shot from a wide angle constituted the only chance of note for the visitors. It was in fact the only shot on target until Reece Cole forced Wigan keeper Sam Tickle parry a low shot around the post in the last few minutes of an otherwise entirely featureless first half.

Although clear-cut chances had been a rarity in the first half, it took just 4 minutes of the second for the visitors to carve out a chance to take the lead. Asamoah, by far the sparkiest player on the pitch for much of the evening, had sent Angus MacDonald the wrong way in the box before taking a tumble over the Exeter defenders trailing leg. The resulting penalty was fired right down the middle by Wigan’s Dale Taylor.

City keeper Joe Whitworth made up for failing to keep the spot-kick out a few minutes later, with a brilliant reaction save, blocking a low shot from close range following a Wigan corner.

Since both sides had contributed equally to the dullness of the first 70 minutes, it was only fair that Exeter eventually got their equaliser. A corner was deflected a couple of times and fell kindly for Reece Cole, whose half volley was perhaps not as well struck as he intended, but still made for a neat finish, bouncing up off the turf and high into the top right-hand corner of the Wigan goal.

It was all City from then on, and much livelier. But despite Exeter’s near constant pressure over the course of the last twenty minutes, it was Wigan who had the best chance to grab a winner, via Asamoah. Finding himself clean through on goal, and faced only with an onrushing Joe Whitworth, he opted for the cute dink over the Exeter keeper (who is admittedly not the tallest or most imposing of goalkeepers) but got it all wrong and instead scuffed the ball well wide of the gaping goalmouth.

The Grecians pressed with some corners and hopeful deep crosses but failed to sneak a second goal in and had to settle for a point which, despite being won in an uninspiring of manners is a significant improvement from recent showings at home. The season is ending in the least exciting of manners, but City can at the very least rest relatively easy with any threat of relegation to League Two now all but gone.