A first-half brace from Ronan Curtis, added to by early second-half goals from captain Tom Naylor and John Marquis, saw Portsmouth defeat Crewe Alexandra at Fratton Park yesterday afternoon, despite Oli Finney’s stoppage-time penalty coming as consolation for the visitors.
Manager David Artell made one change from Tuesday night’s 2-0 victory at Oxford United with Offrande Zanzala replacing the injured Mika Mandron up front (who was missing with a hamstring injury) with Regan Griffiths taking the Congolese forward’s place on the bench.
The opening chance of the game came in the 3rd minute as Curtis’ free-kick went wide of the target before the first Alex chance came in the 10th minute saw Finney test Craig MacGillivray from the edge of the area to force a corner. The opening goal of the game came on the quarter-hour mark with a free-kick between Ryan Wintle and Omar Beckles broke down with Curtis playing a 1-2 with Marquis before scuffing the ball into the bottom corner with the second coming 5 minutes before the break as Luke Offord’s square-ball went under the foot of Beckles, allowing Curtis the opportunity to round Will Jaaskelainen and score from close range, a penalty would have been given with Jaaskelainen bringing down the Pompey wide-man.
The third came 5 minutes after the break as Perry Ng’s headed clearance went straight to Naylor, who shaped back onto his left-foot to score from 25 yards out into the bottom corner before the fourth came on 58 minutes after a quickly taken throw-in (which should have been the Alex’s according to the linesman) found Curtis whose shot was saved by Jaaskelainen, Marquis’ follow-up hit the angle of post and bar with him heading in the rebound. The Alex consolation came in the third minute of stoppage-time as a short corner was taken to Finney whose effort hit defender Lee Brown in the face (but judged as hand by referee James Oldham) with Finney sending MacGillivray the wrong way from 12 yards.
The next games for the Alex see us travel to Accrington Stanley on Tuesday before playing our FA Cup 2nd Round game at Cheltenham Town next Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
It’s a little disappointing to lose that way after playing well in the first half without taking chances at one end and gifting Pompey a couple of goals at the other. After coming out for the second half, it’s about giving a reaction to going in behind in that way but it was the hosts that gave the reaction coming out of the dressing rooms at the break, by finishing the game off before the hour-mark.
Games like this happen and we’ll look to rebound well on Tuesday night.
Fratton Park
League 1
21/11/2020 4:00 pm
Attendance: 0
Referee: James Oldham
| Portsmouth | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Curtis (2), Naylor, Marquis | Finney | ||||||
| MacGillivray | Jaaskelainen | ||||||
| Mnoga | 46 | Ng | |||||
| Whatmough | Beckles | 46 | |||||
| Raggett | Offord | ||||||
| Pring | 46 | Pickering | |||||
| Harness | 82 | Lowery | 59 | ||||
| Naylor | Wintle | 66 | |||||
| Cannon | Finney | ||||||
| Curtis | Powell | 59 | |||||
| Harrison | 86 | Zanzala | 90 | ||||
| Marquis | Kirk | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Bass | Richards | ||||||
| Johnson | 46 | Ainley | 66 | ||||
| Brown | 46 | Lancashire | 46 | ||||
| Close | Griffiths | 90 | |||||
| Nicolaisen | Dale | 59 | |||||
| Morris | 82 | Johnson | |||||
| Hiwula | 86 | Murphy | 59 | ||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 12 | Goal attempts | 13 |
| 7 | On Target | 3 |
| 3 | Corners | 13 |
| 19 | Fouls | 9 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 30 | % | 70 |