Trafford produced a disappointing performance on Saturday to fall to a 2-1 defeat at the hands of in-form Witton Albion and slip down to 14th place in the NPL West Division.
The visitors came into the game on the strength of five successive victories and were naturally confident from the start, Max Harrop flashing a shot across the face of Sam Booth’s goal in the 8th minute.
Trafford were struggling to string their passes together and Harrop went close again in the 26th minute when he shot straight at Booth from the right.
Two minutes later, and completely against the run of play, Karl Marginson’s side surged ahead when Matty Morgan swung a corner over from the right and skipper Harry Norris rose to power a header past keeper Louie Fallon.
Trafford’s lead was short-lived as, just six minutes later, Witton mounted a slick move down the right, the ball was played inside to Nick Hepple and he coolly fired home from 10 yards.
Trafford were becoming increasingly frustrated in their attempts to gain a stranglehold on the game and their cause wasn’t helped by some over-officious refereeing decisions that saw Brad Byrne, Jack Higginbottom and Cian Donohue all receive yellow cards either side of half-time.
Ryley Smith saw his shot from 20 yards defected wide in a rare home attack and manager Karl Marginson introduced substitutes Hilal Khan and Matty Lusakueno in an attempt to bring some rhythm to his team’s game.
However, in the 58th minute disaster struck when Witton were controversially awarded a free kick on the edge of the Trafford penalty area, James Hooper striking a shot that took a wicked deflection off the wall, wrong-footing Sam Booth and flying into the bottom corner.
Marginson’s side piled forward in the closing stages led by some electrifying runs by the mercurial Lusakueno.
In the 81st minute he neatly turned inside a Witton defender but saw his shot from 15 yards deflected wide.
Two minutes later Lusakueno burst through but was denied by a brilliant last ditch tackle by Joe Bailey.
Jack Higginbottom shot straight at keeper Fallon from 25 yards and three minutes into injury time Harry Norris’s header from another left wing corner was deflected wide.
Despite throwing everything at the visiting defence in those final minutes Trafford were unable to create any chances of note and so slipped to another damaging defeat.
However, they have an opportunity to make amends for that setback on Wednesday night when they travel to Avro before entertaining Nantwich Town at the Away Day Care Shawe View Stadium on Saturday, kick off 3 p.m.