Stepney FC 2–0 Wigston FC: finished by twenty

Match report

The opener arrived in the 8th minute. Mikael Adesanya slid a pass through a Wigston back line that parted like a crowd with somewhere better to be, and Lautaro Elordi finished it without fuss. That mattered because Wigston, 18th on 33 points and thoroughly out of sorts, had arrived looking for another goalless afternoon. They drew 0-0 with Stepney earlier in the season and clearly thought they could do it again. Elordi ended that idea before it settled.

The second came twelve minutes later, and it was the one that mattered most. Adesanya had done the assisting for the first, so he decided to do the scoring himself and ran onto the ball, beating the goalkeeper, making it 2-0. Honestly, that was the game. Stepney, second on 61 points and in good nick, did the job early and spent the rest of the afternoon keeping the keys in their pocket.

The red card at 62 minutes was academic, but it had its own grim logic. Damien Colombier has a habit of finding the referee's notebook, booked against Crookes on the 18th, booked against Sussex on the 10th, so a straight one was not a surprise. It handed Wigston 28 minutes with ten men. It did not change the flow of the match because the match had already been decided. It just gave Wigston more practice at defending in numbers, which is at least something to take away, assuming they consider that a takeaway.

Look, I'll be straight with you. This was a comfortable afternoon for Stepney. Elordi now has goals against Llandaff and Wigston this month bracketed around a lovely assist against Jesmond the other day. Adesanya keeps turning up in the right places at the right times, which is a handy habit for a side with designs on the top. Stepney never looked like dropping it.

The next matchday arrives tomorrow. Wigston will have roughly 24 hours to decide whether the draw earlier in the season was a mirage or a warning. Given how they looked here, probably best they don't spend too long on it.