Match Preview – Crewe Alexandra vs Newport County

Both teams come into this game looking for a victory for different reasons. Crewe will be looking to put some distance between themselves and the bottom 2 (currently 7 points ahead of second bottom Leyton Orient) whilst Newport are currently bottom of the league sitting 11 points behind Notts County, although they have a game in hand. The visitors will also have Mike Flynn in temporary charge until the end of the season following the dismal of manager Graham Westley and assistant manager Dino Maamria on Thursday.

Crewe Alexandra will be missing second choice goalkeeper Dave Richards, who broke a finger in the Cheshire Senior Cup game against Hyde on Tuesday night, but he’ll be replaced in the squad by new signing Andy Dawber who arrived from Altrincham yesterday. He is joined in the injury room by skipper Danny Hollands who is the only outfield player that is missing through a long-term hamstring injury and Chris Dagnall misses out as it’s the final game of his 3 match ban after his red card against Stevenage a fortnight ago.

Home Record: W5 D6 L6 F22 A19 Pts 21
Top League Scorer: George Cooper, Alex Kiwomya 7

Newport will be missing Josh Sheehan, who has injured his ACL and returned to Swansea having been on loan for the season and will be looking to improve on their dreadful run of form that saw them win just once since mid-November (a 3-1 home win against Hartlepool at home at the end of January).

Away Record: W3 D4 L10 F18 A27 Pts 13
Top Scorer: Rhys Healey 6

Previous meetings:
In the history of the fixture, there have been 11 wins apiece with 13 draws.

Newport 1-1 Crewe Alexandra (20th August 2016)

Chelsea loanee Alex Kiwomya opened the scoring for the Alex in the 16th minute with ex-Port Vale striker Sean Rigg equalising for Newport 9 minutes from time.

Newport: Day; Jones, Bennett, Turley (Parkin), Butler; Green (Barnum-Bobb), Labadie (Tozer), Randall, Myrie-Williams; Rigg, Jackson
Crewe: Garratt; Turton, Davis, Guthrie, Bakayago; Kiwomya, Jones, Bingham (Hollands), Cooper (Ray); Lowe (c), Dagnall (Ainley)

Played for both:
Current Newport defender Paul Bignot came through the Alex academy where he made 21 league appearances for the Railwaymen before moving on to Kidderminster Harriers. Jamie Moralee, Rhys Taylor and Harry Worley have also represented both clubs.