Goals from Mickey Demetriou, Ed Turns and Josh Austerfield, the latter two scoring their first goals for the club, saw Crewe Alexandra defeat league leaders Stockport County at Edgeley Park last night, despite Isaac Olaofe’s leveller in the first half.
Manager Lee Bell made 3 changes from Saturday’s 1-0 home win against Crawley Town as Lewis Billington, Austerfield and Courtney Baker-Richardson came in for Ryan Cooney, Shilow Tracey (who both dropped down to the bench) as well as Conor Thomas, who missed the game with a slight knock while former Alex midfielders Nick Powell and Antoni Sarcevic both started for the hosts.
The game’s opening chance came in the 6th minute as Demetriou’s cross was turned goalwards by CBR with Austerfield forcing Ben Hinchliffe into a save before the Alex took the lead 2 minutes later as Aaron Rowe’s free-kick wasn’t dealt with, Turns laying the ball into the path of his fellow centre-back Demetriou to score from 12 yards out.
The hosts levelled 9 minutes before the break as Powell’s through-ball allowed Sarcevic to set up Olaofe to score from close range before the lead was restored a couple of minutes before the break as Demetriou’s cross was headed in by Turns from 6 yards out. The third came 6 minutes after the break as a Rio Adebisi corner was headed out to Austerfield to fire his first senior goal in from just outside the area.
The next couple of games see the Alex hosting Harrogate Town on Saturday travelling to Notts County the following Saturday.
Final Thoughts:
What a result that was! Just when we thought that the Derby, Mansfield and Barrow away games couldn’t be topped – this happens.
Three well-taken goals, especially the one from Austerfield, against the team that had a run of 12 straight wins earlier in the season and looked to be cruising the league will see others properly take notice of the team that we have here – I thought in the summer that it would be next season that we would start to push towards getting promoted but it feels like it could be a disappointment if we don’t go up this season.
Edgeley Park
League 2
13/02/2024 8:45 pm
Attendance: 9363
Referee: Neil Hair
| Stockport County | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Olaofe | Demetriou, Turns, Austerfield | ||||||
| Hinchliffe | Davies | ||||||
| Cass | Billington | ||||||
| Horsfall | Turns | ||||||
| Touray | Demetriou | ||||||
| Bristow | 46 | Adebisi | |||||
| Lemonheigh-Evans | 46 | Offord | |||||
| Sarcevic | 56 | Austerfield | |||||
| Croasdale | 46 | Holicek | 63 | ||||
| Madden | Rowe | 90 | |||||
| Olaofe | Baker-Richardson | ||||||
| Powell | Nevitt | 81 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Smith | Westwood | ||||||
| Byrne | 46 | Cooney | 90 | ||||
| Camps | 46 | Tracey | 63 | ||||
| Wootton | 56 | Leigh | |||||
| Hippolyte | 62 | Kirk | 81 | ||||
| Bennett | Agius | ||||||
| Bailey | 46 | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 6 | Goal attempts | 8 |
| 2 | On Target | 5 |
| 4 | Corners | 7 |
| 14 | Fouls | 17 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 63 | % | 37 |