Goals from Chris Long and Chris Porter saw Crewe Alexandra defeat Cheltenham Town at Whaddon Road and get their first points in 8 games and the first win since beating Charlton Athletic midway through last month.
Manager David Artell made three changes from Tuesday’s 1-0 defeat against Oxford United with Josh Lundstram, Rekeem Harper and Porter coming in for the injured Tariq Uwakwe, Callum Ainley and Bassala Sambou with the latter two dropping down to the bench.
The opening chance came in the opening minute with Dave Richards having to deny Kion Etete’s header as the Alex took the lead in the 19th minute with Long curling the ball with the outside of his foot into the corner from Porter’s knock-down. Tom Lowery would hit the side-netting with a free-kick from just outside the area on 32 minutes before Richards would make another save from Callum Wright a minute later.
Cheltenham would level the score 3 minutes into the second period with Etete scoring, getting on the end of Alfie May’s flick-on, before Long got in behind the hosts’ defence with Raglan making a challenge that could have been a penalty on another day moments later. The Alex would leave with all 3 points with Porter heading home a Dan Agyei corner 7 minutes from time.
Our next couple of games sees the Alex host Wycombe Wanderers next Saturday before hosting Portsmouth the following Tuesday.
What can we take out of this game?
This result feels a bit too little, too late to have too much of an impact on the season (unless we go on a bit of a run over the next few weeks). Two well-taken goals from the two Chris’ but we were a little slow to react to the equaliser. On seeing the replay back on the highlights video, it looks a certain penalty in the second half but, thankfully, it didn’t affect the result.
Whaddon Road
League 1
26/02/2022 4:00 pm
Attendance: 4227
Referee: Anthony Backhouse
| Cheltenham Town | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Etete | Long, Porter | ||||||
| Evans | Richards | ||||||
| Raglan | Johnson | ||||||
| Pollock | 87 | O'Riordan | |||||
| Boyle | Offord | ||||||
| Blair | Lundstram | ||||||
| Wright | Lowery | ||||||
| Bonds | Griffiths | ||||||
| Ramsey | 60 | Harper | |||||
| Williams | Agyei | 84 | |||||
| May | Long | 89 | |||||
| Etete | Porter | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Flinders | Jaaskelainen | ||||||
| Long | Ainley | ||||||
| Freestone | Finney | ||||||
| Sercombe | 60 | Sambou | 84 | ||||
| Williams | 87 | Onyeka | |||||
| Soule | Lawton | ||||||
| Colkett | Salisbury | 89 | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 14 | Goal attempts | 6 |
| 4 | On Target | 2 |
| 8 | Corners | 7 |
| 17 | Fouls | 12 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 48 | % | 52 |