MANAGER Keith Alexander shuffled his pack of cards to produce only Macclesfield’s third home win of the season.

The Silkmen opened the scoring in the sixth minute when Terry Dunnefield released James Jennings whose cross from the byline was met with a firm downward header by on-loan Nat Brown at the far post.

Young striker Gareth Adams went close in the 20th minute with a shot over the bar from a narrow angle, but in the 30th minute it was Macc keeper Jon Brain who was tested by a low drive from Kevin Ellison.

Macclesfield looked to extend their lead before the break with Simon Yeo and Jennings both forcing saves from Danby, but Chester pegged them back on 56 minutes when Ryan Lowe curled his 12th goal of the season round the stranded Brain.

Penalty

Macclesfield re-took the lead courtesy of a controversial penalty awarded by former Premiership ref Andy D’Urso, who ruled that Shaun Kelly had blocked a Sean Hessey cross with his hand, allowing Gareth Evans to slot home his fifth goal of the season from the spot.

Macc sealed the result in the 85th minute with their best move of the game when Evans set up substitute Martin Gritton, who scored his sixth goal in eight games with a neat finish to the far post.

Alexander said: “If you change your personnel and lose then you get stick, but if you change your personnel and win, then you’re the toast of the town. I don’t look at the results, its the performance that pleased me.”

He added: “It’ll be good to go into the Everton game on the back of a win and a few of my players will now be wondering if they’re going to get into the side. This was a good performance, we only got nervous for ten minutes in the second half when they scored, but apart from that we dominated.”

Macclesfield (3-5-2): Brain 7; Walker 7, Hessey 7, Morgan 7; Reid 7, BELL 8, Dunnefield 7, Brown 7, Jennings 7 (Thomas 73, 7); Evans 7, Yeo 6 (Gritton 62, 7).

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