Goals in the final 10 minutes from captain Mickey Demetriou and substitute Chris Long saw Crewe Alexandra come from behind to defeat Bromley in the first-ever meeting between the teams at Hayes Lane yesterday.
Manager Lee Bell made 8 changes from Tuesday’s 5-1 home win against Liverpool’s Under-21s in the EFL Trophy as Lewis Billington, Jamie Knight-Lebel, Demetriou, Zac Williams, Max Sanders, Conor Thomas, Shilow Tracey and Kane Hemmings came in for Ryan Cooney, James Connolly, Charlie Finney and Long (who all dropped down to the bench) with Owen Lunt, Kian Breckin, Fin Roberts and Calum Agius all missing out. The Alex bench would include Omar Bogle after his recovery from injury while former Alex loanee Lewis Leigh started in midfield for the hosts.
The first chance and goal of the game came in the 2nd minute as Leigh played a 1-2 with Michael Cheek before firing the ball into the roof of Filip Marschall’s net before Grant Smith would deny Williams’ header at the other end a couple of minutes later. The Welsh defender would have the next effort midway through the first half, getting on the end of a Conway cross, but missed the target before a Sanders corner was headed wide by Hemmings.
Smith would deny another defender on 39 minutes, this time Knight-Lebel was denied from just outside the area with the keeper making the save to his left before Leigh missed the target in the opening minute of the second half. Marschall would make a great save with 15 minutes to play as Kamarl Grant’s shot from outside the area was heading for the bottom right corner of the Aston Villa loanee’s goal before the score was level on 83 minutes. Demetriou volleyed in substitute Tabiner’s right-sided free-kick from 8 yards out before the winner came in the first minute of stoppage-time as Long headed in substitute Lankester’s left-footed cross from close range.
The next games for the Alex sees a trip to Blackpool on Tuesday in the EFL Trophy before hosting Morecambe next Saturday in the return to league action.
Final Thoughts:
I finished Tuesday’s column wondering if we could build on that result with another one here and that’s exactly what we needed, though we could have done without conceding in the opening 90 seconds.
Some changes from Bell saw attacker after attacker be introduced and it was this that allowed the chances to come yesterday and could see a change in shape (potentially at least another attacking body from the start) next week against Morecambe, who have lost all 4 of their league games 1-0.
It’ll be interesting to see who gets time in the Blackpool game (I’d imagine that Long and Bogle would be getting some needed minutes in their legs) and whether we can effectively put ourselves into the knockout stages which a win would virtually do.
Hayes Lane
League 2
31/08/2024 3:00 pm
Attendance: 3322
Referee: Scott Jackson
| Bromley | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leigh | Demetriou, Long | ||||||
| Smith | Marschall | ||||||
| Grant | Knight-Lebel | ||||||
| Webster (c) | Demetriou (c) | ||||||
| Reynolds | Williams | ||||||
| Imray | 83 | Billington | 56 | ||||
| Arthurs | Sanders | ||||||
| Leigh | 74 | Thomas | 56 | ||||
| Congreve | 61 | Conway | 82 | ||||
| Odutayo | Holicek | 64 | |||||
| Cheek | Tracey | 82 | |||||
| Whitely | Hemmings | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Long | Cooney | 82 | |||||
| Sowunmi | 83 | Long | 64 | ||||
| Dinanga | Bogle | 82 | |||||
| Dennis | 61 | Tabiner | 56 | ||||
| Amantchi | Lankester | 56 | |||||
| Topalloj | Connolly | ||||||
| Thompson | 74 | Finney | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 10 | Goal attempts | 15 |
| 2 | On Target | 5 |
| 5 | Corners | 7 |
| 18 | Fouls | 11 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 41 | % | 59 |