Ryan Wintle’s stoppage-time winner saw Crewe Alexandra come from behind against 10-man Northampton Town yesterday at the Alexandra Stadium in front of a crowd for the first time this season. Ricky Holmes gave the visitors the lead in the 3rd minute with Owen Dale levelling the score 8 minutes after half-time with full-back Joe Martin sent off with 20 minutes to play for the Cobblers.
Manager David Artell made nine changes from Tuesday’s 3-2 penalties at Hull City as Oli Finney and Charlie Kirk were the only 2 players to retain their places as the team was almost reverted back to the team that drew at Burton last Saturday.
The opening chance and goal of the game came in the 3rd minute as a quickly taken free-kick was crossed in from the visitors’ right by Will Hoskins with Holmes turning the ball in from 3-yards out before the first Alex chance came 8 minutes later with Mika Mandron heading Tom Lowery’s corner over the bar. Martin was given his first yellow card on 25 minutes for timewasting before Lowery and Wintle had efforts that missed the target in a first-half that lacked a shot on target for the Alex.
The equaliser came early in the second half with Dale volleying in a Kirk cross from the left before Martin would receive his marching orders for a foul on Luke Offord. The Alex almost took advantage straight away from having a man advantage with Kirk hitting the post cutting in from the left before the wideman would have an effort cleared off the line with a lob goalwards. Finney would hit the bar with a header with 10 minutes to play while Olly Lancashire had a header that was cleared for another corner. The winner came in the fourth minute of stoppage-time with another low cross from the left, this time from captain Harry Pickering, saw Wintle smash the ball in from 8 yards out.
The next games for the Alex see us play at home against Plymouth Argyle on Tuesday before a trip to AFC Wimbledon next Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
A welcome return of fans to the ground and a performance that the supporters will be really happy with, both in terms of how we played and the way that Northampton played to try to stop us from playing.
A bitter opening with their goal coming from switching off from a free-kick but from there it was a case of putting pressure on their goal for the majority of the game. Dale’s goal came at a good time in the second half to give us a little boost (after not having a shot on target in the first half) while the Cobblers didn’t have an effort in the second period as they dropped off every time we got the ball back and they had no-one to play off the hold-up play of Smith up front.