Goals in each half from Callum Ainley and Shaun Miller, the latter a contender for Goal of the Season, were enough to see off a hapless Cambridge United at the Alexandra Stadium last night.
Manager David Artell made named an unchanged line-up and substitutes bench as Saturday’s defeat at Crawley Town while Cambridge made 3 changes from their game on Saturday as they drew 2-2 against Bury.
After a tight opening 20 minutes, the first chance fell to the visitors with wide-man George Maris forcing Ben Garratt into a save before Ainley gave us the lead with 11 minutes before the break after good pressure from the Alex saw Cambridge forward Jevani Brown forced into a defensive mistake, for some reason passing across the box instead of down the line, with Ainley stabbing the ball home from around the penalty spot to give the Alex the lead at the break.
Into the second half where Crewe had the advantage still with Ainley trying his luck with a long-range effort that was saved by David Forde before Charlie Kirk then Jordan Bowery both came close for the Alex. The final 20 minutes saw a little more action with Kirk heading a James Jones cross against the post before Garratt made an excellent save from substitute Ade Azeez before fellow substitute David Amoo hit the bar with a deflected effort. The second goal came 4 minutes from time as Miller picked the ball up, beat a couple of players before having the composure to finish over Forde for his second of the season.
There’s no game this weekend after we were eliminated from the FA Cup so we return to action a week on Saturday (8th) against Oldham Athletic at home.
What have we learnt from this game?
Unlike Saturday’s game which saw us pick up no points for a decent performance, we had a worse game last night which saw us pick up all 3 points – another example of football being a funny game as the cliché goes. Whilst we were alright in parts, we have to look after the ball a little better against the better teams but Cambridge were not great and allowed us to win so many second-balls particularly in midfield.
Alexandra Stadium
League 2
27/11/2018 8:45 pm
Attendance: 2569
Referee: Tom Nield
| Crewe Alexandra | Cambridge United | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ainley, Miller | |||||||
| Garratt | Forde | ||||||
| Whelan | Halliday | ||||||
| Ng | Taylor | ||||||
| Nolan | Taft | ||||||
| Pickering | Dunk | ||||||
| Ainley | 90 | Maris | |||||
| Wintle | Deegan | 83 | |||||
| Jones | Osadebe | 63 | |||||
| Kirk | Ibehre | 64 | |||||
| Miller | 88 | Brown | |||||
| Bowery | 83 | Lambe | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Richards | Mitov | ||||||
| Raynes | Amoo | 63 | |||||
| Porter | O'Neil | 83 | |||||
| Nicholls | Azeez | 64 | |||||
| Finney | 90 | Darling | |||||
| Hunt | Davies | ||||||
| O'Connor | John | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 13 | Goal attempts | 7 |
| 6 | On Target | 3 |
| 5 | Corners | 5 |
| 9 | Fouls | 8 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 51 | % | 49 |