Chris Porter’s goal saw Crewe Alexandra draw at Cheltenham Town’s Whaddon Road yesterday despite the visitors play the final 20 minutes after Perry Ng was shown a second yellow card as both teams remain in the top 3 in the league.
Manager David Artell made 1 change from last Saturday’s home win against Salford City with Daniel Powell replacing Owen Dale on the right-wing, the latter dropping down to the substitutes’ bench.
The first chance came in the 9th minute of the game with Chris Hussey’s corner headed goalwards by Greaves that was saved by Will Jaaskelainen with Nicky Hunt’s clearance closed down by Gavin Reilly and ending up in the net off the forward. Porter had a goal disallowed for offside 9 minutes later Reilly was denied by a sliding tackle from Eddie Nolan.
Porter would have a goal that was allowed in first-half stoppage-time after Tom Lowery and Harry Pickering combined down the left with the full-back crossing for Porter to score his fifth of the season.
The second half saw Powell have an effort blocked early on before being replaced by Dale while Ng, who was booked just after the break, was shown a second yellow card with 20 minutes left to play and he’ll miss the game next week. Jaaskelainen denied Broom late on and Alex Addai in stoppage-time as the Alex held on for a point.
We host league leaders Exeter City next Saturday before a trip to Mansfield Town in the EFL Trophy on the following Tuesday night.
What can we take out of this game?
It’s another game that we can add to our unbeaten run in the league (6 going back to the trip to Newport 6 weeks ago) but it’s another game where a red card has potentially cost the club getting the 3 points that would have took us top of the table outright rather than second on goal difference behind Exeter.
Looking forward to next Saturday and our options at right-back following the dismissal in this game, we could give a debut to Travis Johnson (who is the regular right-back for the Under-23s), a debut to midfielder Josh Lundstram who has played in the position during pre-season or, the most likely of the 3 options, bring Olly Lancashire into the centre of the defence and move Hunty to right-back.
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