Goals from Luke Waterfall, Kieran Green, Andrew Smith and Stephen Wearne saw Grimsby Town easily defeat Crewe Alexandra at Blundell Park in the 1st Round of the Carabao Cup last night.
Manager Alex Morris made 7 changes from Saturday’s 3-0 home win against Harrogate Town with Charlie Finney making his debut at left-back, Regan Griffiths and Charlie Colkett coming into midfield while Khanya Leshabela, Oli Finney and Joel Tabiner started behind Courtney Baker-Richardson. Out of the team went Zac Williams, Conor Thomas, Callum Ainley, Dan Agyei, Lachlan Brook, Bassala Sambou and Tariq Uwakwe, who all dropped down to the bench alongside goalkeeper Tom Booth and Billy Sass-Davies as the Carabao Cup has 9 substitutes available to teams but still the 5 subs and 3 windows plus half-time like in league games.
The hosts took the lead in the 13th minute with Waterfall heading in an Anthony Driscoll-Glennon free-kick from deep inside the 6-yard box before a looping header from Alex captain Luke Offord hit the woodwork minutes later. Grimsby extended their lead on 34 minutes with Green’s drive from the edge of the area finding the top corner.
After a couple of half-time changes that saw youngsters C. Finney and Tabiner replaced by Williams and Sambou, the Alex would lose Colkett to injury (to be replaced by Uwakwe) before Grimsby added a third with another deep free-kick from Driscoll-Glennon was glanced in by Smith on 56 minutes. The final Alex changes were made on 58 minutes with Ainley and Agyei replacing O. Finney and Griffiths before the hosts added the fourth 3 minutes from time with Wearne turning the ball in at the back post unmarked from a left-sided cross as the Alex crashed out of the cup.
The next games for the Alex see a return to league action at Salford City on Saturday before a home game against Sutton United next Tuesday.
What can we take out of this game?
It’s a hard one to gauge really in isolation with the number of changes that were made from Saturday’s team, maybe it would have been better to go with fewer changes from the start and use some of those who came into the team last night plenty of minutes off the bench in a game that could have had a closer scoreline at that point.
That said, it does allow us to focus on the league for the next few weeks before we put out a similar team (you’d imagine) in the Trophy when that starts in a few weeks.