First-half goals from Troy Parrott and Conor Coventry saw MK Dons move back into the automatic promotion spots after a victory over bottom-placed Crewe Alexandra at Stadium: MK last night, despite Bassala Sambou’s first goal for the visitors in stoppage-time.
Manager David Artell made two changes to the starting 11 from Saturday’s 3-1 home defeat against Fleetwood Town with midfielders Rakeem Harper and Josh Lundstram coming into the team for Oli Finney and Chris Porter, the former missing out on the matchday squad with the latter dropping down to the bench. Mika Mandron returned to the bench while there was a first call-up to the first team for second-year scholar Lewis Billington.
The opening chance came in the 2nd minute with Parrott shooting over before the Republic of Ireland international opened the scoring on 24 minutes with the striker getting on the end of captain Dean Lewington’s long-ball before lobbing Dave Richards in the visitors’ goal. Scott Twine would hit the crossbar with a free-kick in the 32nd minute before the lead was doubled 5 minutes before the break with Coventry skipping past a couple of challenges, with another finish over Richards from just outside the box.
After a couple of changes at the break which saw Mandron and Connor O’Riordan replace Zac Williams and Luke Murphy (and a return to the 4-3-3), it was more of the same with the hosts controlling the game without needing to do too much in front of goal. There was something for the fans to shout about in the final minute of stoppage-time as Travis Johnson’s left-footed cross found substitute Sambou with the German finishing on the turn from 6 yards out.
Our next couple of games sees the Alex travel to Doncaster Rovers on Saturday.
What can we take out of this game?
At least it’s one game closer to the end of the season with Saturday likely to finally seeing the R next to the club on the league table.
One positive was the finish of Sambou even if it was too late to matter in terms of getting back into the game (against a team that didn’t need to be anywhere near the top of their game).
Stadium:MK
League 1
5/04/2022 8:45 pm
Attendance: 7315
Referee: Ross Joyce
| MK Dons | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parrott, Coventry | Sambou | ||||||
| Cumming | Richards | ||||||
| O'Hora | Johnson | ||||||
| Darling | Offord | ||||||
| Lewington | Williams | 46 | |||||
| Hayden | Ainley | ||||||
| McEachran | 82 | Lundstram | |||||
| Coventry | Murphy | 46 | |||||
| Harvie | Kashket | 70 | |||||
| Parrott | 64 | Lowery | |||||
| Eisa | 64 | Harper | |||||
| Twine | Long | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Ravizzoli | Jaaskelainen | ||||||
| Smith | 82 | Porter | |||||
| Kasuma | Mandron | 46 | |||||
| Corbeanu | 64 | Griffiths | |||||
| Kemp | Sambou | 70 | |||||
| Boateng | O'Riordan | 46 | |||||
| Wickham | 64 | Billington | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 9 | Goal attempts | 4 |
| 4 | On Target | 1 |
| 5 | Corners | 3 |
| 12 | Fouls | 14 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 58 | % | 42 |