A Luke Offord own goal and Bersant Celina’s chip saw Ipswich Town defeat Crewe Alexandra at Portman Road yesterday afternoon despite Chris Long’s third goal in as many games.
Manager David Artell made three changes from Tuesday’s 3-2 defeat at AFC Wimbledon with Offord returning after suspension in the back 5 with Regan Griffiths (making his full league debut) and Oli Finney coming into the midfield – Terell Thomas and Madger Gomes dropped down to the bench with Luke Murphy missing out suspended after picking his 5th booking on Tuesday night.
The opening chance and goal of the game came in the 3rd minute with Sone Aluko’s effort deflecting in off Offord from close-range before the first Alex chance came 15 minutes later with Long testing Christian Walton from Chris Porter’s hold-up play. Finney and Tom Lowery would both have efforts late in the first half before Bersant Celina would double the hosts’ lead in stoppage-time, chipping Dave Richards from 25 yards.
The Alex would get one back as Long would turn in on substitute Mika Mandron’s (who played as a right wing-back) shot with 17 minutes to play before the Frenchman would have an effort that would miss the target a few minutes later.
Our next couple of games see the Alex hosting Doncaster Rovers in the EFL Trophy on Wednesday before returning to league action at home to Lincoln City the following Tuesday.
What can we take out of this game?
It was another game that saw us wait until the final quarter of the game before having a go. It’s interesting that Josh Lundstram hasn’t been given an opportunity to play as the right wing-back yet (given that Artell has been talking him up recently to get more game time than he has had) seeing as two left-footed forwards Kashket and now Mandron have both played ahead of him in the position despite JL playing there in recent weeks for the Under-23 team.
Portman Road
League 1
28/11/2021 4:00 pm
Attendance: 18883
Referee: James Oldham
| Ipswich Town | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| o.g., Celina | Long | ||||||
| Walton | Richards | ||||||
| Donacien | Offord | ||||||
| Nsiala | Sass-Davies | ||||||
| Edmundson | Williams | ||||||
| Clements | Kashket | 56 | |||||
| Morsy | Lowery | ||||||
| Fraser | Griffiths | 84 | |||||
| Aluko | 66 | Finney | |||||
| Chaplin | 66 | Adebisi | |||||
| Celina | Porter | ||||||
| Bonne | Long | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Hladky | Jaaskelainen | ||||||
| Harper | Thomas | ||||||
| Evans | 66 | Knight | 84 | ||||
| Pigott | Mandron | 56 | |||||
| Vincent-Young | Gomes | ||||||
| Burgess | Lundstram | ||||||
| Edwards | 66 | Woodthorpe | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 13 | Goal attempts | 11 |
| 4 | On Target | 3 |
| 5 | Corners | 5 |
| 20 | Fouls | 8 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 50 | % | 50 |