First-half goals from Harry Pickering and Charlie Kirk saw Crewe Alexandra defeat league leaders Peterborough United at the Alexandra Stadium yesterday afternoon.
Manager David Artell made nine changes from Tuesday’s 4-3 defeat against Shrewsbury Town (reverting back to the team that beat Bolton in the FA Cup last weekend) with Olly Lancashire and Luke Murphy returning to the bench.
The opening chance of the game came in the 7th minute as Oli Finney have an effort that missed the target before Sammy Szmodics had the first chance for the visitors midway through the half. The Alex would take the lead on the half-hour mark with Pickering’s 20-yard free-kick going in off the inside of the post, his third free-kick goal of the season. The second would follow 5 minutes before the break with a square ball across the park was intercepted by Kirk whose first touch allowed him to finish past Pym from the edge of the area.
The second half saw the visitors make a change at the break in personnel and a change of system to a back 3 but it would be the Alex to have a chance next with Perry Ng missing the target with a trademark faint so he could have a left-footed strike from outside the area just before the hour-mark. Posh’s best chance came in the 79th minute with Reece Brown having a shot from distance that was saved by Will Jaaskelainen before he spread himself like Peter Schmeichel used to do to deny sub Mohammed Eisa scoring the rebound.
The next games for the Alex see us travel to Oxford United on Tuesday night before a trip to Portsmouth next Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
To be honest it’s a result that has been coming based on the last 3 or 4 performances that saw us control the game against one of the better teams in this league, who had won 8 of their last 9 in all competitions. It was such a good team performance that makes it hard to pick a Man of the Match but it was Omar Beckles’ best game for us while Mika Mandron held the ball up well and won free-kicks at times to relieve pressure.