Needham Market recorded and important three points over 18th placed Oxford City at the Ecologic Stadium Bloomfields.
Tom Rothery's side made two changes to the midweek defeat at home to Hereford, captain Keiran Morphew and Iffy Allen returned with Dan Morphew and Seth Chambers on the bench.
While both sides shared the possession early on, Corrie Andrews saw two close range shots blocked by Tommy Smith inside 14 minutes, clever play from the Marketmen broke the deadlock 2 minutes later.
An exquisite cross-field ball from Kyle Hammond released Iffy Allen through into the box, on the right-hand side, to expertly lob the keeper into the far corner.
Needham then doubled their lead on 43 minutes after Hammond's right wing, long range, free-kick was turned home by Jacob Lay at the far post.
Rothery's side were deserving of their half-time lead, and almost made it 3-0 on 58 minutes when Kyle Hammond's deflected set-piece was beaten away by McKenzie-Lyle.
Needham did increase their advantage on 63 minutes, goalscorer Jacob Lay's clever cross was headed into the far corner by Jamie McGrath.
Lay's low cross then just evaded Iffy Allen moments later, while Marcus Garnham smothered a Oxford shot behind on 68 minutes.
McGrath headed just over from close range following a free-kick on 72 minutes.
Academy graduate Charlie Wood leapt like a salmon to head home Tommy Smith's smart left wing cross for the fourth in stoppage time as Needham jumped up to 20th.
Goalscorer Jacob Lay said, "What the boys keep telling me to get to the back post and it finally broke for me and it managed to creep over the line I think. So yeah, really pleased. Well, 50-50 really, but hey, the goal's been given so I'm happy.
"Just all the lads, I think the last time we played these it wasn't the best performance. The last week or so it's been a good feel around the club, good buzz and yeah, we're just happy to get the result. Unlike the other performances where we played well, we haven't got the rub of the green. Tonight it just worked, so that was good. He's (Tom Rothery's) given us freedom. He wants us to be forward and attack more and get bodies in the box. And yeah, I feel like we've really picked it up and we're doing well, doing what he's asking us to do and it's paying off.
"It's really positive. And yeah, like I said, the lads are really buzzing and changing room and we're going into games more confident now that we can actually win games. And yeah, everything seems to be on the up from here."
Assistant Manager Nathan Munson reflects on today's win.
DK: A brilliant win and another three points on the board?!
NM: Yeah, absolutely. Delighted with the performance. Obviously, delighted with the three points, the clean sheet and the four goals is excellent. And I think we've been saying that if we operate and perform to our levels, then we'll win more often than not. And that's what we did today. And I think you look through the whole team, this is the most pleasing thing, is everybody's eight or nine out of ten. And if we get to that position, when everybody's contributing, we'll be a difficult team to beat.
DK: Four different but very well taken goals as well?
NM: Yeah, excellent, excellent goals. I mean, it's a difficult afternoon, there's a bit of breeze, a firm, stiff breeze down the pitch. The pitch is a bit sticky still, so conducive to free-flowing football. And so it was a little bit scrappy at times, but I think we did carry a real threat. And if you look at it, like you say, you look at the four goals, I mean, the first one's a nice through ball, and if he's just clipped over the keeper, a treat. The second one, he's come down left side and Jacob Lay's hit a thunderbolt, which the keeper couldn't handle. I think the third goal for me, probably the pick of the bunch, the build-up play was excellent. And then Jacob Lay jinked in back onto his right foot, puts the ball in and it's a fantastic header from JMc (Jamie McGrath). And then just to cap it off, you know, last minute, even though we're 3-0 up, we've still got Tommy Smith on an overlap to put a great ball in and delighted that Charlie's come in and just feathered the header into the corner of the net, which is sort of summed up a really good day for the football club.
DK: Yeah, he was unlucky not to get his first goal for the club on Tuesday, but he's got it now.
NM: Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was disappointing Tuesday because I think we all thought it was a perfectly good goal that was disallowed for the lad falling over and it was nicely slotted away, frustrating. But it shows again that he's willing to get in the box and carries a threat and knows where the goal is. So, you know, it really pleased him.
DK: And up next, the trip to South Shields.
NM: Yeah, we know how difficult that will be because South Shields are particularly strong at home. Come here earlier in the season, it was one of our better home performances.
I think it was 3-0 on the day. So we're prepared properly. We've got a few coming back from injuries. You know, you look back even at Tuesday night when we had to have some players from the Reserves drafted in and now all of a sudden the picture changes. We'll either train Thursday night or Friday morning before we go. We hope to have a close to full strength squad and we'll go up there full of confidence, but at the same time recognising that's going to be a really tough assignment.
They're good at home, they've got a good crowd. But, I mean, Tom mentioned just as I was leaving the chamber, he said that's four Saturdays in a row that we've won. So, you know, that's a good foundation to build from and we'll go there expecting to put a good performance in.
DK: And that's an important statistic, especially now that the midweeks are slowly dying down.
NM: Yeah, slowly dying down. It's been a busy few weeks and I think there's a few more, you know, dotted in now that we have Scarborough away on a Tuesday night.
So, I don't quite know how the league fixture secretaries have come up with that one. We've got the Southwark Premier Cup in there as well. So, we've still got a few short busy weeks, but, yeah, it looks like we've managed to get a few back from injury and got through this difficult or congested period of games with a few points, of course, pleasingly. We look at the table now and we're out of the bottom four. Results didn't go badly for us today. We've always said it's what about we do and it is still all about what we do and whether or not we keep performing and then we'll take care of ourselves. But I think it does give the club, the players, the staff, everybody just a little bit of heart when we see that we're out of the bottom four as we are tonight. Free-scoring. Yes, you know, credit to Tom, to be honest with you. There was, you know, minor tweaks because I think obviously before Kev left, we'd still sort of turned a bit of a corner and we got a couple of wins in that period as well. So we were starting to be on an upward curve. It's just minor tweaks. A couple of things he's said to the players and looked at things in a slightly different fashion has been positive so far and we've been able to get a few goals off the back of it.
But we know we just need to keep working hard, putting in 100% effort, keep the standards high and collectively, if we keep doing those things, we think we'll still win more than we lose and that'll put us in quite a strong position come the end of the season.
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