Sutton United 2

Aylesbury United 1

In a tense encounter, Sutton withstood a second half fightback by the visitors to take three precious points. With Dagenham surprisingly losing at bottom placed Oxford it has narrowed the gap at the top to just five points with Sutton having one game in hand.

Sutton started the quicker and could have scored in the first minute, Joff Vansittart flicking a corner goalbound only to see it cleared off the line. That was probably the only real goalmouth incident in the first half-hour and both sides struggled for supremacy in midfield but after thirty minutes the game sprung into life. Danny Brooker and Andy Salako combined on the right the latter putting in a good cross which was headed on by Matt Hanlan to Joff Vansittart who's header back across the goal beat the keeper past his left hand. That was Joff's twelfth goal of the campaign but his first in the league since the 4^th October.

Aylesbury showed very little in the first half and were limited to shots from long range most of which were off target and eight minutes later Sutton went two up. David Everitt was involved, the ball eventually finding its way to John Ugbah completely unmarked on the edge of the penalty area and he buried his shot right footed.

The second half started in similar fashion to the first, David Everitt having a shot blocked on the line after a good cross by Andy Salako. But Aylesbury had begun to show more ambition since the break and after a spell of pressure they pulled a goal back after twenty one minutes. A cross from the right was acrobatically volleyed home right footed by Mick Swaysland.

Two minutes later it could have been all square Swaysland again having a good shot across goal but Les Cleevely made a fine save right handed to push the ball away for a corner. There was a flurry of second half substitutions, Adam Clarry and Mark Jones coming on for Aylesbury, Naseem Akrour, the hero of Tuesday night, replacing Matt Hanlan and Steve Watson replacing Dave Everitt for Sutton.

Ex Sutton player, Paul Benning was booked for a foul on Joff Vansittart with two minutes to go and Sutton's best move of the second half followed shortly afterwards. A sweeping move involving several players ended with a Naseem Akrour header just brushing the crossbar.

So Sutton now go into next Saturday's crunch game at Dagenham in good heart having recorded their second league victory in a row against good quality opposition.

The Sutton line up was: Les Cleevely, Danny Brooker, David Everitt, Barry Laker, Gwynne Berry, Paul Clark, Jimmy Dack, John Ugbah, Matt Hanlan any Salako and Joff Vansittart.

James Virgo was the unused substitute.