SOLIHULL Moors manager Neal Ardley praised ‘magic’ Josh Kelly after the striker scored his fourth goal in three games in Moors’ 2-0 victory against play-off hopefuls Boreham Wood.
Kelly sealed the points from the penalty spot after Mark Beck opened the scoring in the second half at the ARMCO Arena to secure a fourth successive victory.
The result means Solihull sit ninth in the National League table, seven points outside of the play-off places.
Moors boss Neal Ardley said: “You have to credit Josh Kelly for the magic, he’s just come alive, the player that we knew we had, he’s running teams ragged at the moment, he terrorised them all game.
“We limited them to very little, we’re not here to draw games, we’re too far behind to do that, we’ve got no fear now, let’s just go out and attack every game, we can’t be scared to lose games of football.
“We need a ridiculous run to get ourselves up there, every game we play on the front foot without any backwards steps, ever since we stopped chasing that dream, we’ve got ourselves in a good place.
“Boreham Wood are really hard to play against, they’ve had five clean sheets in a row and they grind you down.
“You have to earn the right to play and we spent about an hour grinding and running and chasing and battling, we got our goal, the game opened up and we got control.”
Moors had the better of the first half as Kelly and Callum Howe tried their luck from distance before the latter headed over from a corner.
However, the game burst into life on 55 minutes when Beck poked home from close range after Nathan Ashmore parried Kelly’s low cross into the scorer’s path.
And Moors doubled their lead on 65 minutes when Kelly was brought down in the penalty area by Chris Bush and picked himself up to plant the resulting spot kick in the bottom corner.
Kelly was denied a second goal by Ashmore who palmed his near post effort to safety as Moors held on to secure a comfortable victory and end The Wood’s 14-match unbeaten run in the league.
Solihull are next in action away at Oldham Athletic on Saturday, March 25 with kick-off at 3pm at Boundary Park.
