Can Crewe Bring Back More Than a Stick of Rock

After two consecutive home wins Crewe Alexandra are starting to regain form and confidence, under manager Dave Artell and assistant Kenny Lunt. The Alex slaughtered Grimsby 5-0 last Saturday and grinded out a 2-1 victory, on Valentine’s Day against a physical side in Wycombe Wanderers, three points eventually secured by Jamie Jones from the penalty spot – a nice present for Crewe supporters, on Jonah’s 21st birthday. Dagnall put the Alex ahead, before Akinfenwa looked to have denied The Railwaymen all three points with a second half equaliser. However, in what Wycombe’s twitter described as ‘daylight robbery’, Jones’ 87th minute penalty secured Crewe their second win in two. A massive penalty, which will add an air of confidence to the dressing room – which is vital in our bid to secure league status. Hopefully we can take another step towards that by, building some more confidence and, extending our two wins in as many games record when we face Blackpool on Saturday.

With the results going our way, we are on a high in terms of confidence and morale. The players, staff and fans at Crewe Alex will be hoping perhaps even believing we’ll bring more than a stick of rock back from the seaside, when we travel to Bloomfield Road on Saturday (18/02/2017). And I believe we are capable of doing so. In last night’s article I talked about how I don’t like playing physical sides, as we are sometimes bullied off the ball. From what I’ve seen, Blackpool do try to play the ‘right style’ of football and I hope that can play into our hands. If they can get high up the pitch, we can hit on the counter charge. The Crewe Alexandra side has speed and skill, and in abundance: Kiwomya, Cooper, Cooke, Bakayogo on the overlap and Turton likes to run forward. Also a critical factor to winning games is obviously scoring goals, recently Bowery has come into his stride and Dagnall has a new fire in his belly – I believe I’m correct in saying he has more goals in his last 2 games than he had previously this season.

As I mentioned previously, we face Blackpool away at the weekend. On paper ‘The Tangerines’ have a very good lower league squad, with players such as: Andy Taylor ( a experienced lower league defender, who has spent most of his career at Walsall), Kelvin Mellor (ex-Crewe full-back, Wembley winner and part of the all-academy XI) and prolific striker Nathan Delfouneso (who has appeared for Villa, Swindon, Burnley and Leicester in his career so far): in their ranks. Delfouneso the man I’m most worried about. At 6’1 he is an aerial threat and he also has electric speed and a good quality finishing ability – he sounds like a perfect striker. However despite the quality they have on paper, Blackpool have underperformed (like us, in my opinion) and are only twelfth in the table. Bang average at best.

Going into the game, I believe we can enjoy the return trip to South Cheshire knowing we have three more points in our recently growing collection – but it will be hard, I feel quietly confident though. A potentially determining factor, in my opinion, is the last two games Blackpool have faced. Now you’re probably thinking, ‘why the last two?’, ‘what were their results?’ or ‘what form are they in?’. But my factor from the last two games comes from not the results but who they were against. Blackpool faced two away games when we won twice at home, one against Carlisle and the other against Portsmouth. Ignoring the result, our players have drove to our home ground and to their house four times in the last week before the match – Blackpool’s players however have drove 786 miles, just with the team to Carlisle and back and to Portsmouth and back. Therefore ‘The Seasiders’ should be tired and hopefully our pace and skill can exploit that, and bring three points to Cheshire.

Three points and a stick of Blackpool Rock that is.