Goals from Mikael Mandron, Oli Finney and Charlie Kirk saw Crewe Alexandra advance into tomorrow night’s FA Cup 2nd Round draw, despite a brace from Nathan Delfouneso, following a second 3-2 victory over Bolton Wanderers at the University of Bolton Stadium yesterday afternoon – the Alex will be ball 4 in the draw that will be live on BBC2 and BT Sport.
Manager David Artell made one change from Tuesday’s 1-0 defeat against Gillingham with Finney replacing Callum Ainley in midfield, Ainley dropping down to the bench. Former Alex midfielder Antoni Sarcevic would captain the hosts while striker Shaun Miller would be on their bench.
The opening chance of the game came in the 5th minute as Ryan Wintle’s cross was missed by Trotters’ keeper Billy Crellin with Kirk unable to turn the ball home before the midfielder would have an effort tipped onto the bar by the home side’s number 1 in the 11th minute.
The Alex would take the lead just before the half-hour mark with Mandron poking in Wintle’s cross from the right before Delfouneso levelled 7 minutes before the break, curling the ball into the top corner from the edge of the area.
With 20 minutes left to play, Finney would restore the lead for the visitors from a narrow-angle, his effort into the top corner almost through the arms of Crellin before the lead would be doubled 6 minutes later with substitutes Ainley and Owen Dale combined to set-up Kirk to score from 6-yards out. Bolton would reduce the deficit 3 minutes later after Miller’s miscued effort was turned in by Delfouneso with the Alex seeing off the pressure from their League 2 hosts late on to advance.
The next games for the Alex see us before host Shrewsbury Town in the final EFL Trophy group game on Tuesday before returning to league action next Saturday hosting Peterborough United.
What can we take out of this game?
Great to see us take the game as serious as we did in terms of team selection (that said I wouldn’t have been surprised to see 4/5 changes to give some of the fringe players some game time – that’ll no doubt happen on Tuesday night now) and a good chance to get into Round 3 should the draw be a good one tomorrow (where we’ll make £20,500 even if we go out at that stage if crowds aren’t allowed back in).
It was good to see that despite not seeing things go our way in the last couple of games, it didn’t affect our performance level in this game and the Finney and Kirk goals were both well taken.
University of Bolton Stadium
FA Cup
7/11/2020 4:00 pm
Attendance: 0
Referee: Robert Lewis
| Bolton Wanderers | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delfouneso (2) | Mandron, Finney, Kirk | ||||||
| Crellin | Jaaskelainen | ||||||
| Baptiste | Ng | 80 | |||||
| Almeida Santos | Beckles | ||||||
| Delaney | Offord | ||||||
| Kioso | Pickering | ||||||
| Sarcevic | Lowery | ||||||
| White | 76 | Wintle | |||||
| Gordon | Finney | 70 | |||||
| Crawford | 68 | Powell | 70 | ||||
| Darcy | 61 | Mandron | |||||
| Delfouneso | Kirk | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Comley | Richards | ||||||
| Hickman | Nolan | ||||||
| Mascoll | Ainley | 70 | |||||
| Greenidge | Zanzala | ||||||
| Tutte | 76 | Dale | 70 | ||||
| Miller | 61 | Adebisi | |||||
| Isgrove | 68 | Johnson | 80 | ||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 5 | Goal attempts | 18 |
| 2 | On Target | 6 |
| 4 | Corners | 6 |
| 9 | Fouls | 7 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 41 | % | 59 |