Southport are now rock bottom of the National League North after being thumped 4-0 at table toppers Chorley this evening.
A poor start to the new season continued for Southport on Tuesday night as they left Victory Park having suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of Chorley.
A goal down inside six minutes, the Sandgrounders found themselves trailing by three at the interval, and after the dismissal of Dean Winnard left them playing with ten men, the evening turned out to be one to forget on every level.
Southport had shown great resilience against Stockport County on Saturday and that made such a careless start to this game even more of a surprise. Their early collapse set the tone for a hugely disappointing night and as the game went on things never seemed likely to improve.
Chorley are the early pace-setters in the Vanarama National League North, sitting top of the table with maximum points from their four games played without a goal conceded and here they picked the Sandgrounders apart at ease.
Southport will hope they are able to pick up their first point as soon as possible and after such a disappointing start to the campaign, they will know how important it is to turn the corner quickly.
The Sandgrounders tried to vary things, starting the game with three central defenders, before introducing Dion Charles midway through the first half and making a double substitution at the break, but no matter that they tried there was to be no respite.
Chorley wasted little time in taking the lead, defender Andy Teague heading in a deep cross from Josh O’Keefe.
The visitors had been grateful to goalkeeper Dan Hanford for an earlier save, turning over a fierce drive from Elliot Newby with a flying stop but that only provided a brief delay as Chorley took control.
Newby was one of several players who Southport were unable to contain and the home team continued to press forward, O’Keefe shooting wide at the end of a smart break.
On 17 minutes, Newby was tripped by David Lynch inside the area to give Adam Blakeman the chance to roll home a penalty.
And Newby featured again in a sweeping move that also involved Matt Challoner and resulted in Louis Almond directing a shot over the crossbar.
Newby’s namesake, Alex, added a third goal with a finely-struck curling effort from just inside the area to emphasise Chorley’s superiority.
A shot from Elliot Newby took a deflection off Almond and clipped the Southport crossbar and the game remained virtually one-way traffic.
Having been introduced from the Southport bench, Charles lined up a shot from long range, while Josh Langley was unable to connect with a free-kick from Jordan Richards but the visitors failed to many an impression.
Their evening got worse in the five-minute period after half-time, Winnard seeing red for an incident off the ball with Alex Newby who, by that stage, had supplied a cross from the right which was turned into his own by Richards, the ball hitting the post and being judged to have crossed the line.
Chorley saw out the game with an air of authority and while they could celebrate maintaining their position at the top of the early table, Southport were left with a lot to reflect on.
Chorley: Urwin, Teague, Leather, Meppen-Walter, Challoner, Blakeman, O’Keefe (Cottrell 60), E Newby, A Newby, Carver (Wilson 64), Almond (Short 71).
Subs not used: Whitham, Anson.
Goals: Teague 6, Blakeman 17 (pen), Newby 33, Richards (og) 47.
Southport: Hanford, Richards, Winnard, Langley, Priestley (Charles 22), Mueller, Osborne (Parry 46), Morgan, Lynch, Gilchrist (Green 46), Sampson.
Subs not used: Phenix, Lowe.
Attendance: 1,368
Referee: Tom Parsons
Report by Alan Jones
Chorley 2 Southport 0 pic.twitter.com/SOMNOoMM8x
— Roving-eye (@rovingsouthport) 14 August 2018