Did Chester make harder work of Lower Breck that they needed to? Yes.
Was this a performance that will allay some of the fears that have been creeping in over the last fortnight? Probably not.
Are Chester in the next round of the FA Cup? Yes.
At the end of the day, that was the goal of the Blues’ trip to the Northern Premier League Division One West side in the second qualifying round of the world’s most famous domestic knockout cup competition.
Chester boss Phil Parkinson had spoken to The Seal in the week leading up to the game about how it was, essentially, a no-win game for his side. A win, even one far more convincing than what transpired, which was a 2-1 success thanks to a brace from Salford City loanee Ruben Butt, would have been the expected outcome. Parkinson said himself during the week that anything other that success would have been “unbelievably bad”.
A draw would have been met with plenty of criticism, and rightly so, and it would have required a game on Tuesday, disrupting further the plans for a full week of preparation that Parkinson had in mind for the home clash with Worksop Town in the National League North in seven days time. It would also have extended a run without a win to six games.
Defeat would have been unthinkable. It would have ranked up their with some of the lowest moments. Forgetting the level, which was only two leagues below the Blues, and the fact that Lower Breck are a good side, the optics looked terrible.
