Goals from Charlie Kirk and Chris Porter saw Crewe Alexandra advance in the FA Cup away to League 1 Accrington Stanley at the Crown Ground but the game will be remembered for something else, having had 3 referees amongst other things which we’ll come onto later in the article.
Manager David Artell made five changes from the win on penalties against Everton’s Under-21’s in the EFL Trophy with Will Jaaskelainen taking the gloves, Nicky Hunt coming into the back 4, Paul Green returning into the midfield with Porter and Kirk playing in the front 3. Dave Richards, James Jones, Callum Ainley and Chuma Anene all dropped down to the bench while Eddie Nolan missed out due to injury.
The first chance of the game saw Owen Dale test Dimitar Evtimov into making an early save before Porter would hit the post. Referee Neil Hair got injured midway through the half before the Alex would take the lead in stoppage-time, getting on the end of a counter-attack with his shot placed into the side-netting.
After replacement ref Alan Clayton also got injured, we had a long break at half-time while the rules on whether how it would be possible to continue, which saw a near-90 minutes half-time, the game continued with the third referee of the afternoon (assistant Danny Gratton) and just the one assistant running the line at the Alex end of the pitch.
Into the second-half, where Lowery won a penalty with Jerome Opoku sliding in and Porter sent Evtimov the wrong way with the penalty while Stanley were reduced to 10 men as Mark Hughes was sent off for a professional foul just outside the area with a little over 10 minutes to play.
We travel to Northampton Town next Saturday before hosting Morecambe the following Saturday.
What can we learn from this game?
It’s great that we’ve advanced into the 2nd Round (we’re ball 33 in the draw tomorrow night), especially in the testing circumstances. Obviously, it’s a shame that the officials got injured but I feel that the situation could have been sorted out a little bit quicker and communicated better to the fans.
Crown Ground
FA Cup
9/11/2019 4:00 pm
Attendance: 1655
Referee: Neil Hair
| Accrington Stanley | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kirk, Porter | |||||||
| Evtimov | Jaaskelainen | ||||||
| Johnson | 69 | Ng | |||||
| Hughes | Hunt | ||||||
| Alese | Mbulu | ||||||
| Opoku | 74 | Pickering | |||||
| Conneely | Green | ||||||
| Clark | Wintle | ||||||
| McConville | 46 | Lowery | |||||
| Finley | Dale | ||||||
| Pritchard | Porter | ||||||
| Bishop | Kirk | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Bursik | Richards | ||||||
| Edwards | Jones | ||||||
| Sykes | 74 | Ainley | |||||
| Sherif | Finney | ||||||
| Carvalho | 69 | Anene | |||||
| Charles | 46 | Johnson | |||||
| Simpson | Adebisi | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 11 | Goal attempts | 12 |
| 1 | On Target | 6 |
| 6 | Corners | 5 |
| 15 | Fouls | 9 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 1 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 47 | % | 53 |