A 79th-minute winner from Aaron James saw Wrexham advance in the EFL Trophy Round of 32 against Crewe Alexandra at the Racecourse Ground yesterday.
Manager Lee Bell made 8 changes from Saturday’s 1-1 home draw against Bradford City as Jamie Knight-Lebel, Lewis Billington, Jack Powell, Owen Lunt, Matus Holicek, Charlie Finney, Adrien Thibaut and Fin Roberts came in for Ryan Cooney, Max Sanders, Joel Tabiner (who all dropped down to the bench) while Mickey Demetriou, Max Conway, Shilow Tracey and Jack Lankester would get the night off. Former Alex midfielder James Jones started for the hosts while former Alex loanees Arthur Okonkwo and George Evans were not involved.
The first chance came in the 7th minute as Mo Faal volleyed goalwards from 30 yards with Filip Marschall making the save down to his left before the first Alex chance came in the 21st minute as Breckin volleyed a left-sided cross from captain Zac Williams with Brad Foster, who was a trialist with the Alex in the summer, making the save to his left. Roberts would be the next to test Foster with a long-range strike that the keeper kicked away before Finney would play Thibaut in behind the Wrexham defence with his effort saved.
The opening chance of the second half saw Powell find Roberts in the area with Foster turning the ball behind for a corner 6 minutes after the break before a cross from substitute Sebastian Revan found fellow sub Paul Mullin in the area as the striker would have his shot blocked by Billington for a corner, both Wrexham players coming on moments earlier. The resulting corner was cleared out with Mullin picking up the ball and James headed his cross in at the near post.
The next games for the Alex see them return to league action at Grimsby Town on Saturday before hosting Colchester United the following Friday.
Final Thoughts:
It was good to see a number of players get minutes against a fairly strong Wrexham side that has plenty of Football League experience, including Jones who had not played for their team in the league for a while.
As far as the game goes, we could have won that with better finishing (Foster was given Man of the Match in the ground) but not having an attacking player that we could have used off the bench also didn’t help to get us through the tie.
Racecourse Ground
EFL Trophy
10/12/2024 7:30 pm
Attendance: 3119
Referee: Martin Woods
| Wrexham | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. James | |||||||
| Foster | Marschall | ||||||
| Forde (c) | 77 | Connolly | |||||
| A. James | Knight-Lebel | ||||||
| Scarr | Williams (c) | 62 | |||||
| O'Connor | Billington | ||||||
| Mendy | 77 | Powell | |||||
| Dobson | Lunt | ||||||
| Jones | 31 | Breckin | 84 | ||||
| Adam | 64 | Finney | 62 | ||||
| Faal | Roberts | 84 | |||||
| Bodvarsson | 64 | Thibaut | 62 | ||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Hall | Lenarcik | ||||||
| Cleworth | Cooney | 62 | |||||
| Cannon | 31 | Sanders | 84 | ||||
| Palmer | 77 | Tabiner | 62 | ||||
| Mullin | 64 | Holicek | 62 | ||||
| Revan | 77 | Dancey | 84 | ||||
| Lee | 64 | Taylor | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 14 | Goal attempts | 11 |
| 3 | On Target | 7 |
| 5 | Corners | 4 |
| 9 | Fouls | 8 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 53 | % | 47 |