Two second-half goals from Chris Porter saw Crewe Alexandra defeat Crawley Town at the Alexandra Stadium last night as the hosts extended their unbeaten run to 7 games.
Manager David Artell made one change from last Saturday night’s 2-1 away win against Walsall as Porter came into the team for the injured Chuma Anene.
After a couple of early Charlie Kirk efforts that both went wide, he would have the ball in the net on 13 minutes but it was disallowed for offside before a move from Harry Pickering and Kirk saw James Jones fire an effort just over the bar. The half ended with Pickering produced a great save from Glenn Morris in the visitors’ goal with a strike from just inside the area.
It was Morris again who would save from Stephen Walker early in the second period before he would deny Kirk with a decent save. The opening goal of the game came with 20 minutes to play as Alex substitute Callum Ainley was brought down in the area with Porter passing the ball down the middle with Morris going to his left. Will Jaaskelainen, who might as well have been a spectator up until this point, made a world-class save to deny George Francomb to his left before the visitors would level with a penalty of their own with 6 minutes to play. Porter was adjudged to have brought down the Crawley player with Nathan Ferguson scoring despite Jaaskelainen going the right way. The winner would come in the 90th minute with substitute Owen Dale floating a cross to the back post for Porter to nod in from close range.
Our next two games see a trip to Plymouth Argyle on Saturday before hosting Macclesfield Town the following Saturday.
What can we learn from this game?
It’s another game where we have played against a team that presses well early on in the game but had to resort to slowing the game down at the end of the game, which is during the portion where the Alex look to attack the most.
That said, we could have led by a couple at half-time last night and, only a fantastic performance from Morris all night, stopped us from being a little more comfortable before Porter’s header.
Alexandra Stadium
League 2
11/02/2020 8:45 pm
Attendance: 3314
Referee: Antony Coggins
| Crewe Alexandra | Crawley Town | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Porter (2) | Ferguson | ||||||
| Jaaskelainen | Morris | ||||||
| Ng | Dacres-Cogley | ||||||
| Nottingham | Sendles-White | ||||||
| Offord | Tunnicliffe | ||||||
| Pickering | Sesay | ||||||
| Jones | Grego-Cox | 73 | |||||
| Wintle | Francomb | ||||||
| Finney | 65 | Bulman | |||||
| Walker | 73 | Allarakhia | |||||
| Porter | Nadesan | 58 | |||||
| Kirk | Palmer | 57 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Richards | McGill | ||||||
| Ainley | 65 | Ferguson | |||||
| Green | German | ||||||
| Hunt | Enigbokan-Bloomfield | ||||||
| Lowery | Camara | ||||||
| Griffiths | Powell | ||||||
| Dale | 73 | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 23 | Goal attempts | 8 |
| 10 | On Target | 4 |
| 6 | Corners | 3 |
| 10 | Fouls | 13 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 3 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 65 | % | 35 |