James Norwood’s 26th goal of the season in the final 20 minutes gave Tranmere Rovers all 3 points against Crewe Alexandra at Prenton Park last night.
Manager David Artell made 2 changes from last Saturday’s home defeat against Northampton Town with Harry Pickering replacing Jamie Sterry at left-back and James Jones, making his first appearance for the first team since picking up an injury in mid-January at MK Dons after 70 minutes for the Under-23s on Tuesday, coming in for Jordan Bowery. Both players who missed out dropped to the bench while former Alex defenders Mark Ellis and Zoumana Bakayago were in the starting line-up for the hosts with Chris Dagnall on their bench.
The opening chance of the game came in the opening minute with Chris Porter, who had scored in both games against the same opposition earlier in the season, heading straight at Scott Davies in the home goal before Norwood missed the target when he should have scored a minute later.
On 28 minutes Porter had another effort saved, this time from a shot rather than a header before substitute Adam Buxton (on for Bakayago) had an effort from distance that was comfortable for Ben Garratt.
Into the second half where Norwood hit the post 6 minutes after the break before a penalty shout at the other end with Alex skipper George Ray taken out a few minutes later. The goal came with 18 minutes to play with a long ball that Eddie Nolan should have dealt with saw Norwood in behind from a Davies free-kick with his finish across Garratt into the bottom corner. We should have equalised with 2 minutes left on the clock with Shaun Miller missing from close range from a Ryan Wintle cross.
We travel to Cambridge United on Tuesday night before hosting Crawley Town next Saturday.
What have we learnt from this game?
It’s another game where we have matched a team that is in the top 7 for large parts of the game but have let ourselves down with another simple mistake at one end with Eddie missing the ball for the goal while Miller should have taken a first-time shot from Wintle’s cross at the end rather than taking a touch which gave the defender enough time to get across and put pressure on him.
Prenton Park
League 2
8/03/2019 8:45 pm
Referee: Martin Coy
| Tranmere Rovers | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Norwood | |||||||
| Davies | Garratt | ||||||
| Caprice | Ng | ||||||
| Monthe | Ray | ||||||
| Ellis | Nolan | ||||||
| Bakayago | 39 | Pickering | |||||
| Pringle | 77 | Jones | |||||
| McCullough | Green | 79 | |||||
| Perkins | Wintle | ||||||
| Smith | 63 | Ainley | |||||
| Norwood | Porter | ||||||
| Jennings | Kirk | 73 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Pilling | Richards | ||||||
| Buxton | 39 | Miller | 79 | ||||
| Nelson | Bowery | 73 | |||||
| Mullin | Lowery | ||||||
| Gilmour | 77 | Dale | |||||
| Banks | 63 | Finney | |||||
| Dagnall | Sterry | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 0 | Goal attempts | 0 |
| 0 | On Target | 0 |
| 0 | Corners | 0 |
| 0 | Fouls | 0 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 0 | % | 0 |