A first-half penalty from captain James Henry saw Oxford United defeat Crewe Alexandra at the Kassam Stadium last night.
Manager David Artell made 4 changes from Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Portsmouth with Dave Richards returning in goal, Terell Thomas starting in the defence for his debut, Oli Finney returned in midfield while new signing Ben Knight came in on the wing. Donervon Daniels dropped down to the bench while Will Jaaskelainen, Shaun MacDonald and Owen Dale all dropped out on the matchday squad after a bout of illness also saw Chris Long and Callum McFadzean miss out with youngsters Regan Griffiths and Joe Robbins coming onto the bench. Former Alex loanee Billy Bodin started for the hosts.
The opening chance of the game came in the 18th minute with a corner headed wide by Luke Offord before the hosts would have substitute Dan Agyei cross for Matt Taylor to fire over. The hosts would win a penalty in the 32nd minute with Thomas bringing down Bodin with Henry sending Richards the wrong way from 12 yards.
Ainley cut inside from the right-wing and had a shot saved by Stevens midway through the second-half before Agyei would chip Richards with his effort going wide of the goal.
Our next couple of games see the Alex host Accrington Stanley on Saturday before traveling to Leeds United next Tuesday in the Carabao Cup 2nd Round.
What can we take out of this game?
It’s another game where we struggled to create much in terms of chances, our only shot on target coming almost 70 minutes into the game, until the final few minutes when Griffiths and Rio Adebisi had efforts that were headed just wide and volleyed over respectively – we missed that creative spark with Lowery’s contract situation and Dale’s illness not helping at all – if things don’t improve it’s already looking like it’s going to be a long season ahead.
Kassam Stadium
League 1
17/08/2021 8:45 pm
Attendance: 6757
Referee: Bobby Madley
| Oxford United | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Henry | |||||||
| Stevens | Richards | ||||||
| Williams | 55 | Ramsay | |||||
| McNally | Thomas | ||||||
| Thorniley | Offord | ||||||
| Seddon | Adebisi | ||||||
| Henry | Lundstram | 84 | |||||
| Rodriguez | Murphy | ||||||
| Brannagan | Finney | 77 | |||||
| Bodin | 76 | Ainley | |||||
| Taylor | Mandron | ||||||
| Holland | 16 | Knight | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Eastwood | S. Booth | ||||||
| Sykes | Porter | 77 | |||||
| Winnall | Griffiths | 84 | |||||
| Mousinho | 55 | Daniels | |||||
| McGuane | Johnson | ||||||
| Agyei | 16 | Robbins | |||||
| Whyte | 76 | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 13 | Goal attempts | 5 |
| 1 | On Target | 1 |
| 9 | Corners | 3 |
| 11 | Fouls | 12 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 3 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 49 | % | 51 |