A brace from Brendon Thomas-Asante after Conor McAleny’s opener helped Salford City to an easy victory against Crewe Alexandra, who played the final hour a man short following the first-half dismissal of Bassala Sambou, at Moor Lane yesterday.
Manager Alex Morris made 8 changes from Tuesday’s 4-0 defeat at Grimsby Town in the Carabao Cup, almost reverting back to the line-up that started both league wins with Billy Sass-Davies coming in for the injured Rod McDonald from last Saturday’s win over Harrogate Town. Charlie Colkett would also miss out due to an injury picked up on Tuesday so Charlie Finney and Joel Tabiner would start on the bench while the Ammies’ bench included Alex Academy Alum Matty Lund.
After a couple of chances for the Alex which saw Dan Agyei head wide and Lachlan Brook pull a shot wide, the hosts took the lead in the 18th minute with McAleny tucking the ball underneath Arthur Owonkwo on a counter from the Brook chance. Following a free-kick being awarded that saw Kelvin Mellor getting a yellow card, Theo Vassell and Sambou had an altercation which saw the Alex forward shown a straight red card before Callum Hendry would hit a shot from outside the area against the Alex bar.
A change at half-time saw Brook replaced by Courtney Baker-Richardson as Morris went to a 4-3-2 formation, the change had the opposite effect to what was planned as Thomas-Asante scored past Okonkwo from outside the area on 50 minutes before the forward added his second a few minutes later, converting an Ibou Touray cross in at the near post.
The next games for the Alex see a couple of home games, first against Sutton United on Tuesday before hosting Northampton Town next Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
It was always going to be a difficult game to get anything out of once we went behind in the heat that we had and made virtually impossible once Sambou was sent off – regardless of whether he felt that he was the first to start the nonsense, he has to be smarter with it and let the referee deal with the incident.