Gaughan sees red as United's losing run now at 20 games

Bray Wanderers 4Galway United 0

Daire Walsh

Galway United’s much-troubled season continued on Friday evening in the Carlisle Grounds, as they slumped to their 20th consecutive league defeat against a highly-motivated Bray Wanderers, who had four goals to spare over them in the end.

Following Drogheda United’s draw with County Louth rivals Dundalk, Sean Connor’s charges now have a gap of 13 points to make up, which really is an impossible task for The Tribesmen given the way that their resources have been stretched.

Nonetheless, United have shown good form against Bray in the past and, if they applied themselves in the proper manner, they always stood a chance of getting something out of this tie. Unfortunately, in much the same vein as their heavy defeat to Sligo Rovers last month, they were greatly hampered by a first-half dismissal, which forced them into a significant change in formation.

However, in that instance Eduardo Dusi was given his marching orders 34 minutes into the action, by which time United were already trailing 3-0, whereas here the game was only underway two minutes when centre-half Lawrence Gaughan was given a straight red-card for a two-footed lunge on Bray’s Shane O’Connor.

In a game where United were always going to find life difficult, this set-back made things even more problematic for the visitors and even though their rearguard did manage to put a resistance for a short while after going down to 10 men, Bray eventually broke the deadlock 13 minutes in when Chris Shields’ cross on the right-wing was parried by Galway custodian Conor Winn into the path of Jake Kelly, who easily converted to the net from just six yards out.

It was really looking ominous for United at this stage, and Bray really should have doubled their lead 20 minutes in when Shane O’Connor whipped in a dangerous cross from the right flank, which found the grateful Dean Zambra in acres of space, and though the energetic Seagulls midfielder looked odds on to score from close-range, his strike on goal flew wide of the target.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.