Mikael Mandron’s fifth goal of the season saw Crewe Alexandra get a point at home against Blackpool at the Alexandra Stadium yesterday afternoon, extending the unbeaten run to four games in all competitions.
Manager David Artell made 2 changes from last Saturday’s 3-0 win over Wigan Athletic with Will Jaaskelainen returning in goal after coming back from international duty with Finland’s Under-21s while Omar Beckles replaced the injured Donervon Daniels at centre-back alongside Luke Offord.
The opening chance of the game came in the 28th minute with Jaaskelainen having to react quickly to stop Luke Murphy’s backpass going in (which was left by Beckles thinking his keeper was behind him) before Ryan Wintle would deny Jerry Yates with a block from his goalbound effort.
The Alex would take the lead 9 minutes after the break with Mandron volleying home Charlie Kirk’s cross through the legs of Pool captain Chris Maxwell, in a move that started in the right-back position, before the visitors would level the score 20 minutes from time with Grant Ward finishing from just inside the area.
The next games for the Alex see us return to league action with a trip to Oxford United on Tuesday before hosting Blackpool next Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
It was one of those games that lacked quality on the ball (both teams committing 15 fouls each in a stop-start game) but it was good to not lose a game where we were off the pace – some of that I imagine will be due to the preparation over the past week since the Wigan game (both in terms of the Oxford postponement and the fallout from that).