Regan Griffiths would be the hero as Crewe Alexandra would defeat Leeds United’s Under-21s in the final EFL Trophy group game, a result that would see the Premier League academy side also exit the competition at the group stage – despite naming a very strong line-up that included a couple of full internationals.
Manager Alex Morris made 8 changes from Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at Barrow as defenders Kelvin Mellor and Rio Adebisi as well as forward Bassala Sambou the only players that remain from that starting eleven. Slovakian youth international Matus Holicek made his first-team debut as part of a front 3 while fellow second-year scholar Owen Lunt would have his first involvement as he was named as a substitute.
The first effort of the game came in the 29th minute with Sonny Perkins having an effort saved by Dave Richards before the Welshman would make a great save to deny Darko Gyabi 6 minutes later. Both players would also have efforts before the half-time whistle would blow without success.
The second half would see the visitors retain their grip on the game while Holicek and Oli Finney would be replaced by Tariq Uwakwe and Dan Agyei respectively before the hour-mark. Lunt would replace Lachlan Brook with 20 minutes to play as Griffiths would fire over with 3 minutes to play, the Alex’s first shot of the game.
Onto penalties where Agyei and Matheus Klich would both score their spot kicks before Uwakwe, Firpo, Charlie Finney, Mateo Joseph, Sambou and Perkins would all miss for their respective teams to keep the score level after 4 penalties each. Griffiths would fire the fifth Alex penalty past Christy before Gyabi would miss the final kick to see the Alex pick up the final point of the evening.
The next games for the Alex host Leyton Orient in the FA Cup on Saturday before hosting Colchester United in the league the following Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
That our penalties weren’t the worst on show – a shootout that was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Either way, it’s good to see as many changes as we saw for this game (something that could have happened in game 2 as well but at least that gave some match practice with the 5-3-2 ahead of it being played in the league) and good to see both Holicek and Lunt make their debuts for the club after a good showing in the Youth Cup last week.
Alexandra Stadium
EFL Trophy
1/11/2022 8:15 pm
Attendance: 1236
Referee: Ben Toner
| Crewe Alexandra | Leeds United U21 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Richards | Christy | ||||||
| Adebisi | Drameh | ||||||
| Mellor | Moore | 61 | |||||
| Sass-Davies | Hjelde | ||||||
| C. Finney | Firpo | ||||||
| Leshabela | Perkins | ||||||
| Griffiths | Gyabi | ||||||
| O. Finney | 60 | Klich | |||||
| Brook | 71 | Gnonto | 61 | ||||
| Sambou | Gelhardt | 61 | |||||
| Holicek | 54 | Joseph | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Okonkwo | Ombang | ||||||
| Thomas | Miller | ||||||
| Agyei | 60 | McGurk | |||||
| King | Allen | 61 | |||||
| Uwakwe | 54 | Debayo | |||||
| Billington | Snowdon | 61 | |||||
| Lunt | 71 | Spencer | 61 | ||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 2 | Goal attempts | 16 |
| 0 | On Target | 6 |
| 3 | Corners | 9 |
| 11 | Fouls | 14 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 25 | % | 75 |