Ashley Nadesan’s goal 21 minutes from time saw Carlisle United win their third successive League 1 game at home to Crewe Alexandra yesterday afternoon as the Alex drop down towards the relegation positions.
Manager David Artell made six changes from Tuesday night’s game at Colchester United with Ben Garratt replacing Dave Richards in goal, Michael Raynes came in for captain George Ray at the back, Callum Ainley and Charlie Kirk replaced James Jones and Harry Pickering in the wide-midfield roles whilst it was all change up front as Shaun Miller and Jordan Bowery came in for Chris Porter and Alex Nicholls.
The first major moment of the game came 10 minutes after the break as Carlisle keeper Joe Fryer and Alex midfielder collided with both players going off on stretchers with suspected broken-legs – Vital Crewe wishes a speedy recovery to both players – whilst the only goal of the game came with just over 20 minutes to play as a long-ball from substitute left-back Macauley Gillesphey was flicked on by Richie Bennett into the path of Nadesan who finished between the legs of Garratt.
The next game sees the Alex host fellow Cheshire team Macclesfield Town on Saturday whilst the Under-23 team have their second home game of the season tomorrow as they face Ipswich Town at the Alexandra Stadium – note that kick-off is at 11am not the normal 1pm for the U23 games.
What do we learn out of this game?
One thing that we learnt from this game is having players in their correct positions (where possible) is far more beneficial than having the best 11 available players out playing. After having many changes of players’ positions for the mid-week game, it was important to have players in positions that they had played the rest of the games at, expect for Nicky Hunt who was filling in for the injured Pickering.