A first-half goal from Harry Anderson saw league leaders Lincoln City win at the Alexandra Stadium for the second time this season last night.
Manager David Artell made two changes from Saturday’s 2-1 win at Doncaster Rovers with Luke Murphy coming in for Tom Lowery in midfield while Owen Dale replaced Daniel Powell on the right-wing, both players dropping down to the bench.
The opening chance of the game came in the opening minute with Imps centre-back Lewis Montsma hitting the crossbar with a shot from distance before former Alex midfielder James Jones would have an effort saved by Jaaskelainen in the 7th minute with the Finn stopping Montsma from converting the rebound. Tom Hopper would hit the post just after the quarter-hour mark before the first Alex chance saw Mikael Mandron head a Murphy cross straight at Alex Palmer in the visitors’ goal. The goal came 6 minutes before the break with a diagonal ball was nodded down by Hopper into the path of Anderson who finished across Jaaskelainen into the bottom corner.
Jaaskelainen would produce a double save to deny Hopper 5 minutes after the break before a double change saw a change of shape as Powell and Chris Porter replace Dale and Callum Ainley with the Alex going to 2 big target man forwards with Powell and Kirk either side of them. Despite lots of pressure at the end, it was the visitors who got their 7th win of the season to stay top of the league.
The next games for the Alex see a trip to Ipswich Town on Saturday before hosting Gillingham next Tuesday.
What can we take out of this game?
We have to be thankful to Will for only losing by the one goal after a double-save early in both halves had kept us level and in the game in each half respectively. I’m not going to be too harsh with criticism this early into the season but I feel that Artell should use a few more of the squad to start games as something feels as though it’s missing over the past couple of weeks (although we’ve played some really difficult games in close proximity).
Alexandra Stadium
League 1
27/10/2020 8:00 pm
Attendance: 0
Referee: Ben Speedie
| Crewe Alexandra | Lincoln City | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anderson | |||||||
| Jaaskelainen | Palmer | ||||||
| Ng | Eyoma | ||||||
| Beckles | Montsma | ||||||
| Offord | Walsh | ||||||
| Pickering | Edun | ||||||
| Murphy | 55 | Jones | |||||
| Wintle | Grant | ||||||
| Ainley | 69 | McGrandles | |||||
| Dale | 69 | Anderson | |||||
| Mandron | Hopper | ||||||
| Kirk | Johnson | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Richards | Ross | ||||||
| Daniels | Jackson | ||||||
| Powell | 69 | Scully | |||||
| Lowery | 55 | Archibald | |||||
| Porter | 69 | Soule | |||||
| Finney | Gotts | ||||||
| Zanzala | Roughlan | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 8 | Goal attempts | 13 |
| 4 | On Target | 5 |
| 3 | Corners | 6 |
| 14 | Fouls | 8 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 59 | % | 41 |