Bassala Sambou’s last-minute winner saw Crewe Alexandra defeat 10-man Leyton Orient at the Alexandra Stadium in the FA Cup 1st Round yesterday.
Interim manager Lee Bell made 6 changes from Tuesday’s penalties win against Leeds United Under-21s in the EFL Trophy as goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo, club captain Luke Offord, Conor Thomas, Tariq Uwakwe, Joel Tabiner and Dan Agyei all return to the team as Dave Richards, Charlie Finney, Regan Griffiths, Khanya Leshabela and Oli Finney all dropped down to the bench with Matus Holicek not involved. Former Alex defender Omar Beckles would captain the visitors.
The first effort of the game came in the 2nd minute with Tabiner curling the ball over the bar from a free-kick before the visitors had a goal disallowed 4 minutes later as the forward kicked the ball out of Okonkwo’s hands. Moncur hit the underside of the bar with an effort from a tight angle with the teams going in level and soaked after a deluge just before the break.
The second half would see Sass-Davies head a Tabiner set piece wide on the hour-mark before the youngster was replaced by Charlie Colkett following the latter’s time out injured with 20 to play. Craig Clay was sent off for a shocking challenge with 5 minutes to play before Sambou would get the only goal of the game in the second minute of stoppage time, getting on the end of Kelvin Mellor’s right-sided cross.
The next games for the Alex host Colchester United next Saturday before travelling to Swindon Town the following Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
More resilient defending from the 2 centre-backs and a well-timed run from both Mellor and Sambou for the goal that won the game – good play between Lachlan Brook and Agyei to set Mellor away on the right and a good pick out from the full-back for Sambou to smash into the top corner.
Alexandra Stadium
FA Cup
5/11/2022 4:00 pm
Attendance: 2104
Referee: Scott Purkiss
| Crewe Alexandra | Leyton Orient | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sambou | |||||||
| Okonkwo | Vigouroux | ||||||
| Mellor | James | ||||||
| Offord | Beckles | ||||||
| Sass-Davies | Ogie | ||||||
| Adebisi | Hunt | ||||||
| Thomas | Brown | ||||||
| Uwakwe | Clay | ||||||
| Brook | Moncur | 68 | |||||
| Tabiner | 70 | Duke-McKenna | 58 | ||||
| Sambou | Kelman | 68 | |||||
| Agyei | Sotiriou | 58 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Richards | Sargeant | ||||||
| Baker-Richardson | Happe | ||||||
| Griffiths | Smyth | 58 | |||||
| O. Finney | Archibald | 58 | |||||
| Colkett | 70 | Wareham | |||||
| Leshabela | El Mizouni | 68 | |||||
| King | Drinan | 68 | |||||
| C. Finney | Pratley | ||||||
| Billington | Sweeney | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 6 | Goal attempts | 10 |
| 2 | On Target | 4 |
| 3 | Corners | 7 |
| 10 | Fouls | 13 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 1 |
| 39 | % | 61 |