A stoppage-time penalty save from Will Jaaskelainen saw Crewe Alexandra’s unbeaten run extend to 7 league games against Colchester United at the Alexandra Stadium last night, the visitors ending a man short after a bizarre incident led to the red card.
Manager David Artell named an unchanged side from Saturday’s 3-1 victory over Swindon whilst Crewe-born Cohen Bramall was in the starting 11 for the visitors.
The first chance of the game saw Perry Ng have an effort blocked on 10 minutes before the visitors’ first effort blasted into the Gresty Road paper shop mid-way through the first period.
There were even fewer chances in the second period up until the final 5 minutes with Frank Nouble had an effort saved well by Jaaskelainen to his left before the biggest talking point of the game happened in stoppage-time. An off-the-ball incident between Nicky Hunt and Theo Robinson, who had been on the pitch a couple of minutes at this point, saw the assistant call the referee over. Hunt was adjudged to have fouled Robinson and received a yellow card for the incident with Robinson sent off for violent conduct in retaliation. Nouble took the penalty which was saved by Jaaskelainen with the game ending goalless.
We travel to Forest Green Rovers on Saturday before hosting Port Vale the following Saturday.
What can we learn from this game?
Having no shots on target throughout the game isn’t going to win too many games but credit to Colchester who were a superbly organised unit defensively.
That said, it wasn’t a dull game, compared to most 0-0s that is, but we didn’t create a great deal and it was a bit of an off-day – previous seasons would have seen us lose playing by the same way. Oh well, on to Saturday now.