Steven Fletcher showed his quality with a hat-trick in Wrexham’s 4-1 League Two comeback win over Barrow, according to Dragons assistant boss Steve Parkin.
The Bluebirds took a first-minute lead through Kian Spence’s finish before the hosts scored three times in 14 minutes of first-half stoppage time, played as a result of Barrow’s David Worrall being knocked out and leaving the pitch on a stretcher.
Fletcher’s brace and Paul Mullin’s free-kick all in the space of five minutes put Wrexham ahead at the break, with Fletcher completing his hat-trick after half-time with a pinpoint header, leaving Parkin to sing his praises.
He said: “It’s great for him. He’s had a long and illustrious career where he’s been a top player and he’s got off to a great start here and then sadly had that little knee injury that’s just held him back for three or four weeks.
“He’s been great in training over the last couple of weeks and he’s great around the dressing room and the lads and today he’s shown what a great player he is.
“We were delighted to get in at half-time in front. I think we needed a goal to give us a spark.
“I think the goal that they got shocked everybody a little bit, it rocked us on our heels a wee bit and we were just a little bit impatient with the football during the first half.
“But towards the end of the first half when we got the goals I always felt that we were going to come on strong.”
Barrow’s Pete Wild revealed Worrall was taken to hospital but was conscious, while his replacement Luca Stephenson was also taken off on a stretcher after being knocked out in an aerial challenge but did not need to go to hospital.
Wild said: “We’ve started brilliantly today. I thought for 40-odd minutes we were brilliant and we took it to Wrexham, like we’d spoken about we wanted to do.
“We end up having a mad 10 minutes and all three goals are completely avoidable.
“Wrexham are in complete control of the football match and they come out in the second half and have the ability with the players they’ve got to control the football match and they’re ruthless with the fourth.
“It was a game too far, I think. We’ve worked ever so hard across the Christmas period. We’ve given everything we’ve got for the football club.
“Unfortunately it wasn’t our day today. We’ve gone 14 unbeaten, we’ve been unbelievable, they’ve been unbelievable, they’ve given everything they’ve got for the football club.
“I think there’s been so many good things across this run, it was going to come to an end at some point.”
Real Madrid 0-4 Barcelona: Guijarro brace sets visitors up for Clasico glory
Patri Guijarro's first-half brace set Barcelona on their way to a thumping 4-0 win over rivals Real Madrid in Liga F on Saturday.
Claudia Pina and Alexia Putellas were also on target as Barcelona continued their perfect start to the season, extending their lead at the top of the table.
The visitors dominated from the off, as Guijarro broke the deadlock inside the fourth minute, tapping in from Putellas' flick-on from a corner.
Cata Coll was forced into a big save to deny Alba Redondo an equaliser shortly after, but Madrid's hope was soon dented as Guijarro picked out the bottom corner with a superb long-range strike for her second.
Pina strengthened their lead six minutes before the break, clinically slotting past Misa with her low strike.
Putellas added some more gloss to the scoreline with four minutes remaining of normal time, beating the Madrid keeper with a lovely dink to bring up her 199th goal for the club.
Barcelona have won all 10 of their games, and now sit eight points clear of Madrid, who suffered their first league defeat of the campaign.
Data Debrief: Total dominance
Madrid will have felt fairly confident coming into this game after a strong start to their season, but they once again failed to find a way past their Clasico rival.
Los Blancos have lost every single game they have played against Barcelona in all competitions, with this their 15th such meeting.
Barcelona smothered their attack early on, restricting their hosts to just one shot in the first half, while they had 10.
Indonesia 0-4 Japan: Visitors stay unbeaten with rout
Japan continued their unbeaten start to World Cup qualifying with a 4-0 victory over Indonesia on Friday.
Two goals from the visitors in either half were enough to seal the three points and get them back to winning ways after a stalemate with Australia last time out.
Ragnar Oratmangoen should have put Indonesia ahead, but he hesitated one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and Japan did not look back after that. They got a bit of fortune with their first goal, Justin Hubner deflecting a cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
Takumi Minamino got their second just before the break, finishing off a pacy counter-attack by darting onto the end of Kaoru Mitoma’s cross to sweep it past Maarten Paes.
While there was not much the goalkeeper could do with that one, he was at fault for the third as he gifted the ball to Hidemasa Morita, who coolly picked out the bottom corner just after the break.
Yukinari Sugawara came off the bench to round off the scoring in the 69th minute. He raced down the right wing and instead of looking to his options, he rifled it in from a tight angle at the near post.
Japan are up to 13 points after five games, sitting top of Group C, while Indonesia are bottom, still in search of their first win.
Data Debrief: Clinically done
For a team still chasing their first win, Japan are probably not high on the list of opponents they would want to face, and Indonesia were undone by their visitors.
Hajime Moriyasu's side created 0.79 expected goals (xG) to Indonesia's 0.72, while they only had four more shots than their hosts (12 compared to eight).
Japan took their chances, and though the win margin may look harsh, they were deserving of the three points, having dominated throughout the game.
Jamaica 0-1 United States: Pepi give visitors advantage in Nations League quarter-final
Ricardo Pepi's first-half strike gave the United States a 1-0 advantage over Jamaica after the first leg of their Concacaf Nations League quarter-final.
The hosts saw a penalty saved in the first half before their frustrations were compounded late on thanks to Mason Holgate's red card.
The USA had the lead just five minutes in – having smothered a Jamaica attack at one end, the visitors caught them out with a pacy counter-attack, with Pepi sweeping it into the back of the net.
Shortly after, Shamar Nicholson was brought down by Matt Turner when he tried to take it around him, but the goalkeeper made amends, diving low to his right to deny Demarai Gray from 12 yards.
In the second half, Holgate was denied a tap-in by Yunus Musah before Turner scrambled to stop Leon Bailey's corner from nestling into the net as Jamaica searched for an equaliser.
With 86 minutes on the clock, Holgate received a second yellow card in just over 10 minutes for dragging Brandon Vazquez back, meaning he will miss the return leg in Missouri on Monday.
Data Debrief: Hitting the mark
Pepi got the all-important goal on Thursday, and is the fourth player to score 12 goals for the USA before turning 22 years old, joining Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore and Christian Pulisic.
But it was perhaps Turner who actually had the most vital interventions; he has now saved three of the eight penalties he's faced for the USA, including two against Jamaica.
Mauricio Pochettino also could not have asked for a better result from his first competitive game in charge of the Stars and Stripes as he became just the third full-time manager to win his first competitive away match, joining Bob Bradley (2008) and Steve Sampson (1996).
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