First-half goals from Oli Finney and Mika Mandron gave Crewe Alexandra a victory in their first home league game of 2022 against Charlton Athletic.
Manager David Artell made three changes from New Years’ Day’s 4-1 defeat at Burton Albion with Travis Johnson, Scott Robertson and Chris Long all coming into the team.
The opening chance came in the 30th minute with Finney pulling a shot wide from Chris Porter’s touch before Luke Offord would volley a Tom Lowery corner with Stephen Henderson pushing it away a couple of minutes later.
The Alex would take the lead 7 minutes before the break with a free-kick kept alive allowing Mandron to test Henderson only for the keeper to push his effort into the path of the late-arriving Finney before the lead was doubled on the stroke of half-time with Mandron heading in a Lowery corner.
Elliot Lee would test Dave Richards in the Alex goal with a free-kick early in the second half before Long would hit the outside of the post with an effort from just inside the area. Richards would deny Sean Clare with a save with 12 minutes to play before substitute Mason Burstow would get one back for the visitors with a deflected effort that looped over Richards a few minutes later. There was controversy at the end with Lee having another deflected effort that looped over Richards which was disallowed following a lengthy discussion between referee Rob Lewis and his assistant, an offside given for a Charlton player interfering with Richards.
Our next couple of games sees the Alex host Shrewsbury Town on Saturday before a trip to Cambridge United the following Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
It was a game where we were poor for the opening 20-25 minutes before improving as the game progressed.
We started really slowly and were a little lucky not to be a goal down after a couple of decent crosses from Charlton couldn’t find a player in the middle but it was the off-the-ball running of Long that saw the game stretched and, against different opposition, perhaps win a penalty for the two challenges that saw him win a couple of corners (the first of which saw the game’s winning goal).