Goals from Mikael Mandron and Oli Finney in the opening 20 minutes saw Crewe Alexandra get their first league victory of the season at the Alexandra Stadium yesterday afternoon against MK Dons.
Manager David Artell named an unchanged starting 11 from last Saturday night’s 1-0 defeat at Hull City while Tom Lowery returns onto the bench following injury, replacing Travis Johnson there.
The opening chance of the game came in the 14th minute with Ryan Wintle’s cross headed in by Mandron across goalkeeper Lee Nicholls while the lead was doubled 6 minutes later with Dale’s through-ball finding Finney who finished across the keeper with his right foot.
Finney almost added his second and the Alex’s third midway through the half after being played through 1-on-1 with Nicholls with the keeper making a decent save before Charlie Kirk and Harry Pickering had efforts that missed the target in the final 10 minutes.
The next games for the Alex see us host Newcastle’s Under 21 side on Tuesday in the second EFL Trophy game before returning to league action next Saturday at Oxford United.
What can we take out of this game?
Really good first-half that should have seen us out of sight with the work-rate of the front 3 and Finney in particular but the MK wingbacks Brittain and Sorinola were positioned far too high, allowing Kirk and Dale space in behind them which they took advantage of with both goals.
The Dons came out after the break and got in behind a couple of times without really testing Jaaskelainen but from there it was about whether the Alex would get another goal on the break from winning the ball back high up the pitch.
Alexandra Stadium
League 1
26/09/2020 3:00 pm
Attendance: 0
Referee: Sebastian Stockbridge
Crewe Alexandra | MK Dons | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mandron, Finney | |||||||
Jaaskelainen | Nicholls | ||||||
Ng | O'Hora | ||||||
Beckles | Lewington | ||||||
Offord | Cargill | ||||||
Pickering | Brittain | ||||||
Murphy | Sorensen | 46 | |||||
Wintle | Houghton | ||||||
Finney | 70 | Gladwin | |||||
Dale | 78 | Sorinola | 83 | ||||
Mandron | Mason | 71 | |||||
Kirk | Morris | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
Richards | Walker | ||||||
Lowery | Keogh | 83 | |||||
Ainley | 78 | Poole | |||||
Zanzala | Kasuma | ||||||
Lancashire | Fraser | 46 | |||||
Lundstram | 70 | Nombe | 71 | ||||
Sass-Davies | Harvie |
Game Statistics |
||
9 | Goal attempts | 2 |
5 | On Target | 1 |
4 | Corners | 8 |
21 | Fouls | 15 |
1 | Yellow Cards | 4 |
0 | Red Cards | 0 |
30 | % | 70 |