Perry Ng scored the only goal of the game as Crewe Alexandra defeated fellow promotion-challengers Cheltenham Town at the Alexandra Stadium yesterday afternoon.
Manager David Artell made one change from last Saturday’s defeat at league-leaders Swindon Town as defender Michael Nottingham came into the team for his debut with Ryan Wintle moving back into midfield. Callum Ainley would drop out of the team down to the bench while the Cheltenham team contained Alex Academy Alum Chris Clements in their midfield.
The first decent chance of the game came in the 24th minute for the visitors with Alfie May squaring the ball for strike-partner Alex Addai to finish but he missed his kick under little pressure before the Alex’s first chance came a few minutes later as Tom Lowery was brought down on the edge of the area with the ball falling into Daniel Powell’s path as the Alex wideman hit the side-netting. Lowery would produce a decent save from Owen Evans just before the break as the teams went in level.
Cheltenham almost took the lead 5 minutes as Addai almost turned provider for May but his cross had too much pace for May before the hosts took the lead on 69 minutes. After a throw-in was successful in finding a red shirt, a passing move saw Charlie Kirk find his captain and Ng found the bottom corner with a left-footed drive from outside the area.
Our next two games see us travel to Macclesfield Town on Tuesday before a trip to Scunthorpe United next Saturday.
What can we learn from this game?
It was a game that saw a team near the top of the league that changed their game to play against us (similar to against Swindon last week) as Cheltenham decide to play almost with a back 8 at times as they looked to play on the break.
It was good to get back to winning ways (where we still haven’t lost back-to-back league games this season) and just as importantly, it was against a rival in the promotion race. Hopefully, we’ll continue this into the forthcoming week and two potentially difficult games coming.
Alexandra Stadium
League 2
18/01/2020 4:00 pm
Attendance: 4478
Referee: Scott Oldham
| Crewe Alexandra | Cheltenham Town | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ng | |||||||
| Jaaskelainen | Evans | ||||||
| Ng | Raglan | ||||||
| Nottingham | Tozer | ||||||
| Hunt | Greaves | ||||||
| Pickering | Long | ||||||
| Lowery | Sheaf | 70 | |||||
| Wintle | Clements | ||||||
| Green | Thomas | ||||||
| Powell | Hussey | ||||||
| Anene | May | ||||||
| Kirk | 80 | Addai | 60 | ||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Richards | Lapworth | ||||||
| Jones | Campbell | 70 | |||||
| Ainley | Boyle | ||||||
| Finney | Debayo | ||||||
| Dale | Lloyd | 60 | |||||
| Johnson | Doyle-Hayes | ||||||
| Mbulu | Ince | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 10 | Goal attempts | 10 |
| 4 | On Target | 3 |
| 8 | Corners | 4 |
| 9 | Fouls | 11 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 3 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 57 | % | 43 |