A goal in each half from George Hirst helped Portsmouth to victory at the Alexandra Stadium last night. Tyler Walker would get the other goal for the visitors while Chris Long got the Alex’s consolation in second-half stoppage-time.
Manager David Artell made one change to the starting 11 from Saturday’s 3-1 home defeat against Wycombe Wanderers with club captain Luke Murphy replacing Rekeem Harper as defender Zac Williams made his first appearance in the matchday squad since late January.
The opening chance and goal came in the 3rd minute with wing-back Connor Ogilvie given the freedom of the ground as his cross was headed home by Hirst before Dave Richards would make a double save 10 minutes later, first from Ronan Curtis’ free-kick then Louis Thompson’s follow-up. The lead was doubled just after the half-hour mark with Walker scoring from close range.
The third came in the 66th minute with Hirst heading home another Ogilvie cross before Connor O’Riordan would hit the bar from close range. The consolation came in the first minute of stoppage-time with Long nutmegging Gavin Bazunu from a tight angle.
Our next couple of games sees the Alex travel to Sunderland on Saturday before hosting Bolton Wanderers the following Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
Just end the season already…
More soft goals where we need to engage the opposition much quicker than we did for the opening goal while the defenders have to react quicker to try and stop the other two.
One positive was the return of Williams who played the full second half and, hopefully, that means that his illness issues are fully behind him now.
Alexandra Stadium
League 1
8/03/2022 8:45 pm
Attendance: 4307
Referee: Andrew Kitchen
| Crewe Alexandra | Portsmouth | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Long | Hirst (2), Walker | ||||||
| Richards | Bazunu | ||||||
| Johnson | 46 | Carter | 78 | ||||
| O'Riordan | Raggett | ||||||
| Offord | Robertson | ||||||
| Agyei | 67 | Romeo | |||||
| Lowery | Morrell | ||||||
| Griffiths | 46 | Thompson | 68 | ||||
| Murphy | Ogilvie | ||||||
| Lundstram | Curtis | ||||||
| Long | Walker | ||||||
| Porter | Hirst | 71 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Jaaskelainen | Webber | ||||||
| Harper | 46 | Hume | 78 | ||||
| Ainley | 67 | O'Brien | 71 | ||||
| O. Finney | Tunnicliffe | 68 | |||||
| Sambou | Vincent | ||||||
| Williams | 46 | Mingi | |||||
| Salisbury | Jewitt-White | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 17 | Goal attempts | 17 |
| 4 | On Target | 12 |
| 7 | Corners | 5 |
| 13 | Fouls | 11 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 65 | % | 35 |