Oli Finney’s 8th goal of the season saw Crewe Alexandra extend their unbeaten record to 10 games against AFC Wimbledon, who took the lead early on thanks to Joe Pigott, at the Alexandra Stadium yesterday afternoon.
Manager David Artell made 2 changes from Tuesday’s 3-2 win over Bristol Rovers as both Luke Offord and Harry Pickering missed out due to injury with Billy Jones making his second debut for the club at right-back with Rio Adebisi coming in for his first start in League 1. Tom Lowery would captain the side in Pickering’s absence while Stephen Walker, back for his second loan spell with the Alex, would have to settle for a place on the bench.
The opening chance and goal of the game came in the 2nd minute as Cheye Alexander’s cross was headed in at the back post from close range before the Alex had their first chance on 15 minutes with Finney having an opportunity saved before Omar Beckles had a header that went wide of the goal from a Jones cross.
The hosts would get back level on 32 minutes as Owen Dale and Jones combined on the Alex right with the latter mis-hitting a cross against the post with Finney finishing the rebound from 6-yards out before the Dons would hit the bar 5 minutes later through Alexander’s long-range drive.
The second-half took a while to get going as Charlie Kirk couldn’t quite find Dale with a cross from the left before Jones would head a Kirk corner wide of the mark a few minutes later. The Dons almost took the lead in the 71st minute with Jack Rudoni’s free-kick flicked on by Beckles was superbly tipped away by Dave Richards.
The next games for the Alex see us travel to Gillingham on Tuesday before returning to the Alexandra Stadium as Ipswich Town travel north next Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
It was another game where we didn’t start a half well (which is becoming a bit of a pattern already in this calendar year), this time the first half rather than the second, but it was a case of Jones and Adebisi adapting to playing in the first team (the latter struggling a little in this game but that could be as a result of not playing at this level before).
Beckles and Lancashire were again decent as a pairing, the Grenadian international the pick of the 2, while the midfield wasn’t quite at their fluid best as a unit.
Alexandra Stadium
League 1
23/01/2021 4:00 pm
Attendance: 0
Referee: Kevin Johnson
| Crewe Alexandra | AFC Wimbledon | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finney | Pigott | ||||||
| Richards | Walker | ||||||
| Jones | O'Neill | 46 | |||||
| Lancashire | Nightingale | ||||||
| Beckles | Csoka | ||||||
| Adebisi | Alexander | 76 | |||||
| Lowery | 73 | Woodyard | |||||
| Wintle | Reilly | ||||||
| Finney | Rudoni | ||||||
| Dale | Guinness-Walker | ||||||
| Porter | 82 | Longman | |||||
| Kirk | Pigott | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Jaaskelainen | Tzanev | ||||||
| Nolan | Chislett | ||||||
| Griffiths | Robinson | ||||||
| Sass-Davies | Oksanen | ||||||
| Johnson | McLoughlin | 76 | |||||
| Murphy | 73 | Dobson | 59 | ||||
| Walker | 82 | Kalambayi | on 46, off 59 | ||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 12 | Goal attempts | 14 |
| 3 | On Target | 4 |
| 6 | Corners | 3 |
| 9 | Fouls | 11 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 61 | % | 39 |