Home vs Crawley Town 19th October

Crewe top on 29 points
Scored 2 in injury time.

 

The second half performance showed the big gap in midfield quality when we start to lose players. Devine for Pritchard stopped us controlling the game.

 

If any of you watched it on iFollow - please watch the final whistle again. Drury goes up for a handshake with the oppo manager, and gets COMPLETELY blanked. Hilarious!

 

Had a decent game. Some good passes, and tracking back.

 

Yep. A win is a win but missing Palmer, Devitt, Donaldson, Connolly, Pritchard, even Riley (because even if people didn't want him his wages would go towards another player) had an impact today but still let's take the three points and on to the next one!

 

Hard fought 3 points. First 25 minutes we were excellent and then we seemed to take our foot off the gas towards the end of the 1st half. 2nd half was pretty even and should have been out of sight with the Oteh chance but then the last 15 minutes we seemed to lose our way. I thought we were slow to bring Mellor on as our right hand side was where Crawley were causing us trouble.

We need to work on keeping the ball and seeing the game out more effectively than we did today, OD won us the 3 points with a good save at the end from their corner but we hung on and that’s the important thing.

 

Good point.

It's the midfield. As soon as we need to use Devine or Anderson it's not far off playing with 10 men. First half we were very good, but once Pritchard went off, we lost our grip. And yes, I know Devine got a goal thanks to a deflection but hes nowhere near the level of Pritchard

 

If Donnelly's back for Tuesday I'd play him on the right with Ismael in the Centre to replace Pritchard. We can't afford to carry Akpan and Devine in the middle.

 

Wow, Exeter got hammered. See Scunny are really struggling. Couldn't even help us by getting at least a draw at Newport!

 

You'll have people telling you devine was good today because his wayward shot got a deflection when in truth as soon as he came on we lost any form of control in midfield.

 

Or play McCartan where Pricthard has been playing.

 

The whole team seemed to tire after their initial high pressure game. Vaughan was harshly treated but have to say he isnt bringing much especially when tired.

 

From my point of view, fair do's to him, you have to buy a ticket etc and without it we may not have won so whatever we think in general he played an important role today in us winning.

 

Taylor or even AOC will do. A midfield consisting of Akpan + Devine/Anderson will take us backwards.

 

Thought Pritchard was our best player first half, hes so much more effective in the centre than out wide. His cover tackles in the first half broke up play. Second half we had very little shape to us which led us to being second best to the ball. Hung on in the end, hopefully the injured players will be back on Tuesday.

 

Lack of depth. Missed Donaldsons hold up play.

 

Think most would struggle to disagree with that.

 

That quarter was garbage. Whole team looked tired, and the subs couldn't derail Crawley's momentum once they scored.

Having said that, best team overall won, Oteh unlucky not to score, Vaughan got found out by the ref, but he far too isolated.

Akpan had a good three quarters, Henley did all right, missed Connolly in my opinion, and Clayton was badly needed for that last 15.

But, we got over the line and it's another three points against a credible side.

 

Donaldson out for a couple of months. Big loss.

 

Ooomph..... Bad, bad news. Shay, Remi will need to step up now.