Chippenham Tn 2, Evesham United 0

HE says he fears no one in the Southern League Premier Division but Dave Busst's biggest fear is if his players continue to produce displays like the one last Saturday that saw three more points go begging, writes Mervyn Collins.

The manager will take some solace from defeat with the fact that the visitors were the better side. Alarmingly, though, they failed to produce any real threats to the home goal on an afternoon when the final ball and set-piece play was woeful.

Richard Ball has been handed chance after chance this term to give the Robins a head start and the striker again fluffed another golden opportunity after just eight minutes when he failed to get enough purchase on his shot with only Steve Perrin to beat and Gary Thorne hacked the ball off the line.

Six minutes later, the Chippenham skipper was in the right place at the other end to volley the hosts ahead after errors by Dave Adey and Guy Hadland saw the ball sit up nicely for Thorne to fire an unstoppable drive into the top corner from 20 yards.

Ball, Hadland and Matty Hall were all wayward with shots from general play or free-kicks, while one centre from Hall summed up Evesham's up front pre-dicament when four home defenders went for the same ball inside the penalty area but not one visiting player was on hand to latch on to the loose ball.

There's a worrying failure for United players to react to situations inside the 18-yard box and of even more concern is the failure to take advantage of neat passing football when all too often the final pass into the danger area fails to cause the defenders any problems.

That wasteful trend got the second half off to a non too optimistic start when another corner was wasted, while Steve Duncan's pitiful cross from United's best move of the game after 58 minutes summed up a sorry afternoon.

Before then the visitors could have been out of sight. Thorne headed on to the roof of Adey's net, Dave Gilroy shot wide after Adam Cooper, who had replaced the injured Neil O'Sull-ivan in the first half, had put his keeper in trouble, while another long throw caused chaos in the Evesham box only for James Constable's header to be disallowed for offside.

Ball, Hall and Leon Blake contrived to waste good positions before another throw at the other end saw Thorne again get his head to the ball but Iain Harvey's half-volley flashed a yard wide.

Richard Robinson was lucky not to see red when he appeared to slap an arm in Constable's direction and the earlier decision to remove captain Blake in preference to Jae Martin was met with disdain by the small visiting contingent.

Jamie Bailey's introduction for Cooper with seven minutes left saw United go to three at the back and they still managed to control matters without testing Perrin with Jermaine Clarke's volley the only shot at goal - or high over it!

Hall and Hadland's indecision saw Town break forward in stoppage-time and there was little Stuart Hamilton could do to prevent Gilroy rolling the ball into the path of Constable who easily beat Adey to complete a miserable trip into Wiltshire for the Com-mon Roaders.