Goals from Aaron Rowe, Mickey Demetriou and Elliott Nevitt saw 10-man Crewe Alexandra draw at home to Accrington Stanley at the Alexandra Stadium as captain Luke Offord was sent off in the second half.
Manager Lee Bell made 2 changes from Tuesday’s 4-2 home defeat against Bristol Rovers in the FA Cup as Connor O’Riordan and Nevitt returned as Zac Williams and Courtney Baker-Richardson dropped down to the bench. Former Alex defender Kelvin Mellor was a substitute for the visitors.
The game’s opening chance and goal came in the 4th minute as Joe White fired the ball into the feet of Rowe with the wideman smashing the ball into the bottom corner on the turn from just outside the area before the score was level a couple of minutes later as a mistake from Demetriou saw Joe Pritchard’s low cross turned in by Nolan from close range.
Demetriou would get on the scoresheet in the 29th minute, heading in a cross from Rio Adebisi at the back post before Pritchard hit the bar midway through the second half. The Alex would be reduced to 10 men with 10 minutes left to play as Offord brought down the Accrington player who would have been through on goal before the visitors levelled on 86 minutes with Ben Woods’ long-range effort finding its way into the bottom corner.
They would take the lead in the 96th minute with another Woods long-range effort was spilt by Harvey Davies with namesake Josh turning in the rebound before Nevitt slammed the ball home a minute later from just inside the area.
The next couple of games see the Alex host Barrow on Friday with tickets costing a maximum of £10 each before travelling to Walsall on Boxing Day.
Final Thoughts:
The obvious place to start here is with the goalkeeper who needs time out of the team for me as his confidence looks shot and to play him at this point could completely destroy him mentally – it was good to see both Tom Booth (who should start in the meantime) and Fred Barber quickly go across to Davies as he was leaving the field.
Alexandra Stadium
League 2
16/12/2023 4:00 pm
Attendance: 4012
Referee: Paul Howard
| Crewe Alexandra | Accrington Stanley | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rowe, Demetriou, Nevitt | Nolan, B. Woods, J. Woods | ||||||
| Davies | Walsh | ||||||
| Offord | Lowe | ||||||
| O'Riordan | Hills | ||||||
| Demetriou | Gubbins | ||||||
| Billington | 62 | Shipley | |||||
| Thomas | Conneely | 60 | |||||
| White | B. Woods | ||||||
| Adebisi | Longelo | 28 | |||||
| Tracey | 82 | Pritchard | 69 | ||||
| Nevitt | Nolan | ||||||
| Rowe | J. Woods | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Booth | McIntyre | ||||||
| Cooney | 82 | Mellor | |||||
| Williams | Martin | 60 | |||||
| Baker-Richardson | 62 | Pickles | 69 | ||||
| Kempster-Down | Trickett | ||||||
| Agius | Henderson | 28 | |||||
| Robinson | O'Brien | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 13 | Goal attempts | 19 |
| 3 | On Target | 8 |
| 6 | Corners | 3 |
| 10 | Fouls | 10 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 1 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 48 | % | 52 |