'˜Excellent' Loxwood inflict a defeat on resurgent Chichester

Second-half goals from Sam Beard and Charlie Pitcher ensured Chi suffered back-to-back defeats in the Premier Division for the first time since October.

The victory saw the sixth-placed Magpies extend the gap over Chichester, who sit a place below them on seven points.

Loxwood have now lost just one their past seven games and manager Mark Beard felt it was another superb performance from his side.

He said: “We were excellent from start to finish. We controlled the game and it could have been a lot more as the boys were on it.

“In the first half, we had a lot of possession but did not take our chance, but in the second half we showed a bit more composure.”

On whether his side have now set the standard for the rest of the season, Beard added: “Even in games before we have – it was just the Pagham game where we let ourselves down.

“In the Horsham game we had a bad start, but against Chichester were excellent.”

Pitcher had two well-struck efforts saved in the first half and Beard also spurned a couple of chances as neither side could break the deadlock before half-time.

Just nine minutes after the restart, Beard gave the visitors the lead as his sidefoot finish from a Pitcher cross found the bottom corner.

Pitcher netted on 65 minutes as the Chichester goalkeeper saved an effort, but inexplixably dropped the ball at the forward’s feet and he tapped home.

Beard added: “People kept saying about Charlie going off the boil, but he is still only 19 years old.

“He went through a bad patch, everyone does, but he is our top scorer and back scoring again.”