Headed goals either side of half-time from Josh Magennis and Will Keane saw Wigan Athletic defeat Crewe Alexandra close the gap at the top of League 1 at the Alexandra Stadium last night.
Manager David Artell made one change to the starting 11 from Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Sunderland with forward Bassala Sambou coming in for midfielder Regan Griffiths, the latter dropping down to the bench.
The opening chance came in the 6th minute with Dave Richards denying right wing-back Tendayi Darikwa before Callum Ainley would force Ben Amos into a save at the other end a minute later. From the resulting corner, Rekeem Harper would hit a drive from a distance that would hit land on the roof of the net before the visitors would take the lead a minute before the break with Magennis heading in a Max Power free-kick.
The lead would be doubled 8 minutes into the second half with Keane heading in a cross from Joe Bennett’s left-sided cross.
Our next couple of games sees the Alex host Bolton Wanderers on Saturday before a trip to MK Dons the following Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
It’s more of the same goals that we have conceded – firstly Magennis and another Wigan player were unmarked for the opener before Keane would be up against Tom Lowery in the air for the second (an 8-inch height difference between the two players).
Once again, the game would follow the same pattern as many this season where we would go two or more goals behind before teams would sit back and invite us to break them down (which we have struggled to create anything).
Alexandra Stadium
League 1
15/03/2022 8:45 pm
Attendance: 5310
Referee: Ben Toner
| Crewe Alexandra | Wigan Athletic | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magennis, Keane | |||||||
| Richards | Amos | ||||||
| Offord | Kerr | ||||||
| O'Riordan | Whatmough | ||||||
| Williams | 65 | Tilt | |||||
| Lundstram | 78 | Darikwa | |||||
| Lowery | Power | ||||||
| Ainley | Naylor | 87 | |||||
| Harper | 65 | Bennett | 69 | ||||
| Johnson | Humphrys | 78 | |||||
| Long | Keane | ||||||
| Sambou | Magennis | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Jaaskelainen | Jones | ||||||
| Porter | 78 | Watts | |||||
| O. Finney | Pearce | 69 | |||||
| Murphy | 65 | Edwards | 78 | ||||
| Griffiths | 65 | Massey | |||||
| Lawton | Shinnie | 87 | |||||
| Salisbury | Bayliss | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 7 | Goal attempts | 13 |
| 2 | On Target | 4 |
| 2 | Corners | 5 |
| 14 | Fouls | 14 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 48 | % | 52 |