Callum Ainley’s first-half goal saw Crewe Alexandra win their final away game of the season at Bristol Rovers yesterday afternoon.
Manager David Artell made two changes from Tuesday’s 2-2 draw at Charlton Athletic with Olly Lancashire returning to the defence as well as Antony Evans coming into midfield. Tom Lowery and Nathan Wood would miss out with youngsters Joe Robbins and first-year scholar Zac Williams making the bench.
The opening chance and goal of the game came in the 19th minute with Owen Dale getting in behind down the Alex right from a Rio Adebisi through-ball before cutting inside and pulling the ball back to Ainley who finished from just inside the area with Dale also heading over from an Evans cross after a free-kick was cleared back out to the taker.
The second half would see the Alex start well with Dale firing over from a Charlie Kirk cross that had been touched on by Mika Mandron before Will Jaaskelainen denied Josh Hare from close range. Evans almost added a second a few minutes from time after a good run but was denied by Joe Day in the hosts’ goal.
The next game for the Alex sees us host Shrewsbury Town in the final game of the season next Sunday.
What can we take out of this game?
It was a comfortable game against a side that wasn’t great, despite only having a single goal in it. With this tweet from Graham McGarry hinting at Ainley staying, getting players like Cal that are out of contract this summer (and there’s a number of them) will be key if we want to build on the season that we have had and avoid ‘Second Season Syndrome’ that some teams suffer from in a division.
Memorial Ground
League 1
1/05/2021 4:00 pm
Attendance: 0
Referee: Craig Hicks
| Bristol Rovers | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ainley | |||||||
| Day | Jaaskelainen | ||||||
| Williams | Adebisi | ||||||
| Kilgour | Lancashire | ||||||
| Baldwin | Daniels | 75 | |||||
| Hare | 57 | Pickering | |||||
| Hargreaves | Ainley | ||||||
| Westbrooke | 85 | Wintle | |||||
| Leahy | Evans | ||||||
| Rodman | Dale | ||||||
| Hanlan | 81 | Mandron | 87 | ||||
| Oztumer | 57 | Kirk | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Ward | Richards | ||||||
| Little | Porter | 87 | |||||
| Liddle | 57 | Johnson | |||||
| Daly | 57 | Robbins | |||||
| Tutonda | 85 | Beckles | |||||
| Walker | 81 | Walker | |||||
| Barrett | Williams | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 12 | Goal attempts | 14 |
| 6 | On Target | 3 |
| 5 | Corners | 5 |
| 13 | Fouls | 8 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 44 | % | 56 |