Goals from Mickey Demetriou and Chris Long saw Crewe Alexandra defeat 9-man Tranmere Rovers at the Alexandra Stadium yesterday.
Manager Lee Bell made 9 changes from Tuesday’s 3-0 home defeat against Wrexham in the EFL Trophy as Harvey Davies, Ryan Cooney, Luke Offord, Demetriou, Rio Adebisi, Jack Powell, Joel Tabiner, Shilow Tracey, Long and Courtney Baker-Richardson came into the team as Tom Booth, Lewis Billington, Charlie Colkett, Charlie Finney, Owen Lunt, Elliott Nevitt and Aaron Rowe dropping down to the bench with Calum Agius and Zac Williams (who pulled out during the warm-up allowing Cooney to start) not involved. Former Alex midfielder Brad Walker was on the visitors’ bench.
The game’s opening chance and goal came in the 11th minute as a free-kick was taken short to Powell whose cross was headed in by Demetriou before White would fire over from a Tracey pull-back 6 minutes later. Tranmere’s best chance of the first half came midway through as Morris was denied by a save by Davies down to his right.
The first red came 3 minutes after the break as goalkeeper Luke McGee handled Long’s chip a few yards outside the area with the Alex’s second goal coming from the resulting free-kick, Powell laying the ball off for Long to strike into the bottom corner past substitute keeper Joe Murphy from just outside the area. Connor Jennings would clip the top of the bar in the 67th minute before Tom Davies would be sent off for two bookings for the visitors in stoppage time, first for a foul on substitute Lunt before picking up his second a few minutes later for a mistimed tackle.
The next couple of games sees the Alex travel to Crawley Town next Saturday before hosting Stockport County the following Tuesday.
Final Thoughts:
This was another performance that saw us better than the opponents. However, that was a low bar as Tranmere were really poor with 11 men but played better with the numbers disadvantage – just a shame that the visitors would resort to trying to put in dangerous tackles late in the game.
Alexandra Stadium
League 2
14/10/2023 4:00 pm
Attendance: 5826
Referee: Ross Joyce
| Crewe Alexandra | Tranmere Rovers | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demetriou, Long | |||||||
| Davies | McGee | ||||||
| Cooney | O'Connor | ||||||
| Offord | Davies | ||||||
| Demetriou | Yarney | ||||||
| Adebisi | 67 | Wood | |||||
| Powell | Jennings | ||||||
| Tabiner | Hendry | ||||||
| Tracey | 90 | Morris | 50 | ||||
| White | 71 | Saunders | |||||
| Long | 71 | Jolley | 67 | ||||
| Baker-Richardson | Hawkes | 85 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Booth | Murphy | 50 | |||||
| Colkett | Walker | ||||||
| Lunt | 90 | Dennis | 67 | ||||
| Nevitt | 71 | Taylor | |||||
| Rowe | 71 | Apter | 85 | ||||
| Finney | 67 | Belebouan | |||||
| Billington | Starbuck | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 16 | Goal attempts | 13 |
| 4 | On Target | 3 |
| 10 | Corners | 4 |
| 7 | Fouls | 10 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 2 |
| 56 | % | 44 |