A goal in each half from Daniel Powell was the catalyst for Crewe Alexandra’s home win against Scunthorpe United to close out the decade at the Alexandra Stadium. Paul Green also scored for the hosts while Lee Novak would score for the Iron in the final 10 minutes.
Manager David Artell made two changes from Thursday’s 3-1 defeat at Salford City with Green and Callum Ainley returning to the midfield with Christian Mbulu and Ollie Finney both dropping down to the bench, Ryan Wintle moving into the defence. Alex Academy Alumni Junior Brown and Matty Lund both started for the visitors.
The opening goal of the game came in the 20th minute with Powell finishing a move down the right that contained Wintle, Green and Chuma Anene across goalkeeper Rory Watson before chances fell to Charlie Kirk and Perry Ng before the Alex added a second 4 minutes before the break. A move that started with Nicky Hunt that involved most of the team ended with Kirk squaring the ball for Green to score from inside the 6-yard box.
Anene would have the ball in the net on the hour-mark but he was in an offside position following up from a Pickering effort that Watson had pushed out in front of him. Novak would reduce the deficit with 9 minutes to play with an effort into the top corner before Powell would fire a shot under Watson a couple of minutes later to seal the game.
Our next two games see a couple of home games, first against Carlisle United on New Year’s Day before hosting Barnsley in the FA Cup on Sunday afternoon.
What can we learn from this game?
A much better performance compared to Thursday’s effort which sees us remain in the top 3 heading into the New Year. The second goal, in particular, was pleasing seeing as the move started with Hunt and Jaaskelainen, involved 6/7 of the team before Green would finish in the 6-yard box with the space opened up by inviting the opposition onto us and playing around them.
Hopefully we’ll have a clean sheet on Wednesday against Carlisle before Sunday’s cup clash.