Substitute Callum Ainley got both goals for Crewe Alexandra as they beat promotion-chasing Mansfield Town at the One Call Stadium yesterday afternoon, despite Krystian Pearce’s stoppage-time consolation for the hosts.
Manager David Artell made 2 changes from last Saturday’s 6-1 demolition of Crawley Town with Aaron Taylor-Sinclair replacing the injured Harry Pickering (who missed out with a groin injury) while James Jones replaced Charlie Kirk in midfield as a change of shape saw the Alex line up in a 4-4-2 formation with Jones starting on the right and Ollie Finney on the left. Former Alex loanee Nicky Ajose started on the bench for the hosts.
The opening chance of the game came in the 15th minute with Stags midfielder Neal Bishop tamely heading goalwards before defender Matt Preston’s volley from a corner was turned away by the chest of Paul Green. The first Alex chance came just before the half-hour mark with Jordan Bowery getting his shot away following a 1-2 with strike partner Chris Porter.
Into the second-half with Ajose coming on at half-time, it wasn’t long for the substitute to get involved in the game with him heading wide from a right-wing cross whilst unmarked before Ainley came on for Jones just after the hour-mark. His introduction saw the Alex get onto the front foot and he scored his first 19 minutes from time with Taylor-Sinclair’s low cross finding him in the area with the wide-man scoring after cutting onto his left foot under pressure from the Stags defence.
He added his second 10 minutes later with fellow substitute Tom Lowery, not long onto the pitch, getting around Pearce before feeding Ainley to fire it across keeper Jordan Smith before Pearce would score in the 3rd minute of stoppage-time as a corner was nodded in his direction and he bundled it in from close range.
We host Cheltenham Town next Saturday before a trip to Port Vale the following Saturday.
What have we learnt from this game?
It’s another win and it seems that we are building a little bit of momentum again to push towards the play-off spots (as we currently sit 6 points outside the playoffs with 7 games for us remaining) into the higher mid-table positions.
Superb footwork from Callum for the opener and a nice exposed finish for the second which some players would have hit the corner flag with.
Field Mill
League 2
23/03/2019 4:00 pm
Attendance: 4675
Referee: Thomas Bramall
| Mansfield Town | Crewe Alexandra | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pearce | Ainley (2) | ||||||
| J. Smith | Garratt | ||||||
| Preston | Ng | ||||||
| Pearce | Hunt | ||||||
| Sweeney | Nolan | ||||||
| Jones | 46 | Taylor-Sinclair | |||||
| Bishop | Wintle | ||||||
| Mellis | Green | ||||||
| Grant | 63 | Jones | 63 | ||||
| Benning | 76 | Finney | 81 | ||||
| Hamilton | Porter | ||||||
| Walker | Bowery | 81 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Logan | Jaaskelainen | ||||||
| MacDonald | 63 | Miller | 81 | ||||
| Khan | 76 | Ainley | 63 | ||||
| Tomlinson | Nicholls | ||||||
| Ajose | 46 | Lowery | 81 | ||||
| Turner | Dale | ||||||
| A. Smith | Kirk | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 9 | Goal attempts | 7 |
| 3 | On Target | 3 |
| 6 | Corners | 3 |
| 16 | Fouls | 14 |
| 4 | Yellow Cards | 5 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 50 | % | 50 |