A second-half hat-trick from Plymouth Argyle striker Ryan Hardie saw the Pilgrims defeat Crewe Alexandra at the Alexandra Stadium last night. Chris Long had given the Alex the lead in the first half with Niall Ennis also getting on the scoresheet for the visitors.
Manager David Artell made two changes from last Tuesday’s 1-0 defeat at Gillingham with midfielder Rakeem Harper making his debut while forward Bassala Sambou would make his first start as part of the front 3 – Oli Finney and Mika Mandron the players missing out. Former Alex midfielder Conor Grant would be on the visitors’ bench.
The opening chance and goal came in the 19th minute with Dan Agyei cutting in from the right with Long pouncing on the rebound to score from inside the 6-yard box before the visitors would win a penalty 3 minutes later following a foul on Danny Mayor by Luke Offord, Will Jaaskelainen denying Adam Randell from 12 yards. Panchute Camara would hit the bar for the visitors just before the half-hour mark and from there it was all one-way traffic.
The visitors would level the score 3 minutes after the break after a mix-up between Jaaskelainen and Offord allowing Hardie to score from close-range before two goals in a minute would end the contest, first Jaaskelainen and would get in a mix with the other centre-back Billy Sass-Davies and allow Ennis to score before Hardie would get his second as he would fire in from the edge of the area. The fourth goal, and Hardie’s third, came with 5 minutes to go as he would race away from the defence before lobbing the ball over Jaaskelainen.
Our next couple of games sees the Alex travel to Accrington Stanley on Saturday before a trip to Wigan Athletic next Tuesday.
What can we take out of this game?
Well, we scored…
On a serious note, we need to start preparing for next season in League 2 as there’s no chance that we’re staying up with the current squad, we’d need a few experienced players to play amongst the young players that we have – anyone know any decent free agents that would be interested in joining us until at least the end of the season?
Alexandra Stadium
League 1
8/02/2022 8:45 pm
Attendance: 3874
Referee: John Busby
| Crewe Alexandra | Plymouth Argyle | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Long | Hardie (3), Ennis | ||||||
| Jaaskelainen | M. Cooper | ||||||
| Alebiosu | Wilson | ||||||
| Sass-Davies | Scarr | ||||||
| Offord | Gillesphey | ||||||
| Uwakwe | Broom | ||||||
| Lowery | Camara | ||||||
| Murphy | 73 | Randell | |||||
| Harper | 73 | Mayor | 60 | ||||
| Agyei | Law | ||||||
| Long | Ennis | 80 | |||||
| Sambou | 83 | Hardie | 89 | ||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Richards | Burton | ||||||
| Porter | Bolton | ||||||
| Ainley | 73 | Houghton | |||||
| Finney | Edwards | 60 | |||||
| Griffiths | 73 | Garrick | 80 | ||||
| Johnson | Grant | ||||||
| O'Riordan | Jephcott | 89 | |||||
| Salisbury | 83 | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 7 | Goal attempts | 18 |
| 2 | On Target | 9 |
| 3 | Corners | 7 |
| 7 | Fouls | 13 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 54 | % | 46 |