Crewe Alexandra won away from home for the first time this season in the league thanks to Jordan Bowery’s fourth goal of the season at Stevenage yesterday afternoon, the hosts having former Crewe defender Ben Nugent sent off early on.
Manager David Artell made 3 changes from last Saturday’s 1-1 draw at home to Bury as on-loan full-backs Corey Whelan and Kevin O’Connor came back into the defence (Harry Pickering moving into central midfield as a result) with Shaun Miller started up front. Those missing out from the starting 11 were Nicky Hunt, James Jones and Chris Porter, all 3 dropping down to the bench.
The game started well for Stevenage with chances from Kurtis Guthrie and Jamal Campbell-Ryce saved by Ben Garratt before a game-changing incident on 12 minutes as Nugent was sent-off for pulling back Miller with the Alex taking advantage of having an extra man with Pickering then Miller having chances that went close. Guthrie was dangerous on the break for the hosts with Crewe captain George Ray having the ball in the net on the stroke of half-time, the goal disallowed for a push on the Stevenage forward.
Into the second-half where it was more of the same with Pickering, Charlie Kirk and Bowery all coming close before the deadlock was broken just after the hour-mark. Jones, moments after coming on for Ryan Wintle, found Bowery on the corner of the area with the Nottingham-born forward curling the ball with the outside of his right foot into the top corner (the goal winning Sky Sports’ Goal of the Day in the process) before he was got in a vital block at the other end to prevent Alex Revell from levelling.
We travel to Yeovil Town on Tuesday night before hosting Grimsby Town next Saturday.
What did we learn from this game?
It was important to take advantage of the red card that was shown to Nugent early on (never a red card and not sure that it’s even a foul) but Ray’s disallowed header was also a wrong decision as 2 Stevenage defenders hit each other rather than Ray fouling either. Can we build on this with Tuesday night’s game? There’s no reason why we can’t come back from Somerset avoiding defeat, hopefully getting our third clean sheet away from home with it.