An own goal from Max Stryjek wasn’t enough for Crewe Alexandra to get over the line against National League Eastleigh at Ten Acres yesterday evening following a goal from substitute Marcus Barnes late on for the hosts. The teams are represented by Ball 53 in tomorrow night’s 3rd Round draw.
Manager David Artell made 1 change from Tuesday’s goalless draw at Forest Green Rovers as Christian Mbulu replaced Nicky Hunt at the back, Hunt dropped down to the bench while former Alex midfielder Danny Hollands captained the hosts.
The game started with Owen Dale played in behind by Paul Green with the wide-man winning a corner after slipping just as he shot before Dale would miss with a header that he should have scored from Charlie Kirk’s cross. Hollands almost gave the hosts the lead midway through the half as he couldn’t direct a header into the bottom corner before the Alex would take the lead with 6 minutes left to play in the half.
After Eastleigh had gotten themselves back into the game, they went behind as a Tom Lowery corner was swung into the near post area, Stryjek was too focussed on stopping Dale from getting off the ground to head home with the goalkeeper inadvertently punching the ball into his own net before Chris Porter would have the ball in the net a few minutes later but it was correctly disallowed for offside.
The second half began with Kirk squaring for Porter to fire over the bar before Eastleigh would dominate the final 15 minutes of the game. Firstly, Charlie Seaman would get down the Spitfires’ right before delivering a cross that evaded everyone then Will Jaaskelainen would make a decent save from a Tyrone Barnett header. Barnes, on for midfielder Cav Miley as they went to a front 3, would level the game with 4 minutes to play as he would tap home from close range following a cross from the left headed back across goal.
Our next two games see a trip to Macclesfield Town in the league next Saturday before the replay against Eastleigh (date TBC but likely to be the following Tuesday).
What can we learn from this game?
We were good for an hour of yesterday’s game before allowing Eastleigh to control the game in the final 20 minutes in particular.
That said, we had a few decent chances to score before we did, especially the Dale header which he gets slightly ahead of the ball, as well as a couple of half-chances. Eastleigh through everything at us at the end of the game and (in seasons gone by) we’d have lost the game in the 90 minutes.
Ten Acres
FA Cup
30/11/2019 6:30 pm
Attendance: 1806
Referee: John Busby
| Eastleigh | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barnes | og | ||||||
| Stryjek | Jaaskelainen | ||||||
| Partington | Ng | ||||||
| Atkinson | Mbulu | ||||||
| Boyce | Nolan | ||||||
| Smart | 77 | Pickering | |||||
| Miley | 83 | Green | |||||
| Hollands | Wintle | ||||||
| Payne | Lowery | ||||||
| Seaman | Dale | 70 | |||||
| Rendell | Porter | ||||||
| Barnett | Kirk | 87 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Flitney | Richards | ||||||
| Green | 77 | Powell | 70 | ||||
| Bearwish | Jones | 87 | |||||
| Scorey | Ainley | ||||||
| Waterfield | Finney | ||||||
| Beale | Hunt | ||||||
| Barnes | 83 | Anene | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 22 | Goal attempts | 14 |
| 6 | On Target | 4 |
| 7 | Corners | 7 |
| 12 | Fouls | 7 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 44 | % | 56 |