Crawley Beaten By ColeSlaw – sorry – Cole-Slew Combination
Crawley Town made the long journey from West Sussex to north Lancashire in order to seek a double over Morecambe in League Two this season. They arrived on the back of two wins and three losses in their last five league outings; their latest game being a 2-0 defeat of ten-man Exeter at home last Saturday. This victory pushed them up to thirteenth in the table. In previous meetings with the Shrimps, four is the magic number. (Unless you believe the Crawley website, where two fours plus three apparently equal twelve.) Town have lost four and won four – last time in October when they scored four goals in the second half to marmalise Derek Adams’ men by four goals to nil. They have also drawn four games, all away at Crawley and if you add all the scores together, you also get four goals each. The Shrimps’ performance against Town earlier in the season was only slightly worse than their collective effort against a poor Mansfield team last Saturday. They didn’t lay a glove on the Stags at any time and would have lost by more than the only goal of a truly dire contest had it not been for a tremendous save by Kyle Letheren right at the start of the game.
Typically, Mr Adams was brutally honest about the weakness of his team’s performance last Saturday after the match. He said:
“I thought it was an extremely poor game – I didn’t think there was any quality for the ninety minutes from both sides. Overall, I didn’t think it was a good afternoon; I thought a lot of the decision-making wasn’t good enough on the day and I think that that has caused us a problem.”
He wasn’t able to put his finger on the reason for his team’s totally lack-lustre display other than to wonder if the poor playing surface contributed and if maybe his men were collectively suffering a reaction from the energy-sapping performance against Salford a few days earlier. DA shook things up for tonight’s game: Letheren, John O’Sullivan, Kelvin Mellor and Toumani Diagouraga were all relegated to the bench to be replaced by Mark Halstead, Brad Lyons, Ryan Cooney and Jordan Slew. Disappointingly, A-Jay Leitch-Smith didn’t feature in the squad at all: let’s hope that his brief appearance at Mansfield has not resulted in yet another injury setback. The one thing that could be said for certain though is that if the team played even half as badly again tonight as they had at the weekend, Crawley would be going home with all the points.
For the visitors, Manager John Yems was without the services of first-teamers Reece Grego-Cox, Henry Burnett, Tom Dallison and Tony Craig. Max Watters – who single-handedly tore the Shrimps apart last October – has moved on to Pastures New in the shape of Cardiff City. There was also an injury doubt about Sam Matthews before the game. However, there was a Mister Wright in the squad tonight who was sitting on the bench. It wasn’t TV star Mark, however: it was his namesake Josh. The charismatic Mr Yems expressed the following thoughts to the Red Devil’s website interviewer yesterday about today’s clash:
“It’s a long trip. Just looking forward to it. Obviously setting off today. Got the boys in training earlier this morning. Everyone’s looking sharp. Looking forward to it. They’re all tough games, mate, I keep saying it: there’s no easy games but we just prepare as much as we can and see where it takes us.”
Asked how he thought his side’s four-nil thrashing of the Shrimps would influence tonight’s result, he said:
“Yeah – that’s past now. Let’s just concentrate what’s in front of us. I keep saying it – three more points up the table keeps you away from relegation. That’s what we’re striving to do first and foremost: make sure the club’s safe. But then I think every club in the league will be thinking the same. You keep looking over your shoulder and you’ve only got a couple of months and it’s all finishing but we’ve still got seventeen games. It’s a long trek. It don’t mean nothing if we don’t get anything tomorrow so just onwards and upwards.”
It has been pleasantly sunny in Morecambe for the last few days and the pitch was dry as well as the weather as the game kicked-off at half-past six. What a contrast to last Saturday’s rubbish at Mansfield; right from the off, here were two teams trying to play football the right way and what unfolded was a half full of skill and quite a few chances. It took just four minutes for the hosts to take the lead with an excellent goal. Jordan Slew picked-out Carlos Mendes-Gomes with a tremendous pass from the left flank; Carlos back-heeled it into the path of Cole Stockton in the clear to his right and Cole swept it home low off the right-hand post from his point of view despite Glen Morris in the away goal getting a hand to it. But if this setback knocked Crawley out of their stride, it didn’t show. They had the best of the next little while, playing quickly and accurately through the Morecambe rearguard with short passes played along the ground. On the right, Jake Hessenthaler caught the eye and Jack Powell, Tom Nichols and Ashley Nadeson also impressed with some good movement and no little skill on the ball. Just eight minutes had been played when Mark Halstead did well to push Nichols’ effort from close-in away from his right-hand post at the cost of a corner. From this, the ball found its way to Nick Tsaroulla, whose wild shot from a long way out went way off-target. With eleven minutes gone, Carlos then played-in Brad Lyons– who was also impressing with a committed and busy performance – on the Shrimps’ left but Morris managed to do enough to put him off. After thirteen minutes, a rare long ball from the Crawley half on the left found Hessenthaler on the right of the Morecambe penalty area; his excellent control allowed him to take a shot that seemed to be curling into Halstead’s top right hand corner. The goalkeeper did brilliantly to stop it but the rebound fell nicely for Nadesan to sweep the ball home to equalise. Two minutes later, following a mistake in the home defence, the scorer was in again but this time wasted a really good opportunity when he lobbed the ball over the bar when well placed. Just over a quarter of an hour had been played when Aaron Wildig almost found Slew with a clear run on goal with a nice pass which was just too short. Then Aaron and Lyons combined well for Brad to send a dangerous cross over from the right which Morris helped over the bar. From the corner, the ball was played short to Carlos who made a brilliant feint to get behind his defender and sent over a cross which Cole Stockton headed wide. The same player than thumped a shot over the bar from the Morecambe right following good link-up play between Wildig and Lyons again. But at the other end, Powell also turned a defender inside out to get in on goal from the Crawley left: his attempt to win a corner by bouncing the ball off a Shrimp player unfortunately hit him on its way over the goal-line. Twenty-five minutes were on the clock when Cole slipped the ball to Slew whose shot from the Morecambe right was well blocked. An unfortunate incident occurred after twenty-seven minutes when Brad Lyons was hurt when trying to retrieve the ball after being tackled. The lad had impressed so far and it was a shame to see him having to be carried off the pitch on a stretcher with what looked like a knee injury. Ten minutes later, as the visitors still looked lively on the ball, Jordan Maguire-Drew finished off some excellent approach play by Town by sending-over a cross from their right which Jake Hesketh just couldn’t quite connect with at the far post. Not long afterwards, Maguire-Drew took a pot at goal from outside the penalty area which missed the target. Then Carlos worked the ball across the field after good work on the Shrimps’ left and shot only to see Morris save it without too much trouble. Cole then went on the charge in the fortieth minute down the left flank only to knock the ball too far ahead of himself and lose possession. Town had the next chance though as Yann Songo’o did well to block a shot after 41 minutes. The half which had been played in an excellent spirit ended in a nasty note, however, when Stephen Hendrie gave Nadesan a crafty push which led to Crawley’s Number Ten colliding painfully with the advertising hoardings by the side of the pitch. He was lucky that Referee Oliver Langford – who otherwise was excellent tonight I thought – clearly didn’t see what he had done.
The second half started as the first one had mostly been played: quickly and skilfully. I thought the visitors were the better team initially but by about an hour, they seemed to me to be gradually running out of steam. Maguire-Drew forced a fairly routine save from Halstead after two minutes of the restart and then sent over a dangerous cross from the right which Ryan Cooney was happy to direct away for a corner kick. But Jordan Slew again impressed as he made a long run virtually the length of the pitch on the Shrimps’ right after 48 minutes and almost found Carlos with a pin-point ball which Morris intercepted just in time. Two minutes later, Mendes-Gomes returned the favour to substitute John O’Sullivan, who shaped to shoot on the edge of the Crawley penalty area – and caught his studs in the turf. With fifty-three minutes played, Nadesan seemed to get the better of Skipper Sam Lavelle and turn him on the edge of the home penalty area – but the Ref thankfully blew for a foul. Just before the hour, though, Morecambe re-took the lead. Hendrie and Slew combined well twice on the left; Stephen put in a low cross from almost the goal line; Morris made a mess of clearing the ball and Carlos Mendes-Gomes gleefully swept it home. Almost immediately, poor defending by the visitors led to a corner kick which their goalkeeper did well to punch clear. An hour was on the clock where more good approach play saw Slew pass to Cole, who only just missed with a low shot. Carlos came even closer a minute later when his acute shot from the left hit the far post and bounced harmlessly away. Not to be outdone, Stockton then dug out the ball when under pressure and put in a shot which missed to Morris’ right. After 63 minutes, Carlos played a ball to Wildig, who slipped his man with a good dummy and then literally slipped when he might have been in on goal. Two minutes later, the visitors showed they had not given up when substitute James Tilley missed with a header. Then Cooney went on a good run on the Shrimps’ right only to draw an easy save from the visiting goalkeeper. Morecambe produced the best move of the game after 70 minutes when they played right through the Town team and Carlos set-up Sully only for Morris to deny him with a really good save. Then a seemingly over-hit cross from the Crawley right bounced off the Morecambe crossbar out of play after 72 minutes. Cole then headed a cross from the right smack against Morris’ post with the goalkeeper a bystander two minutes later. He missed with a shot from an acute angle shortly afterwards but crowned a really impressive display tonight after eighty-six minutes by showing strength and determination to win the ball and unleash a tremendous strike which Morris did well to parry. Sadly for the visiting goalkeeper, the ball fell to Carlos again – and Morecambe’s talismanic Number Eleven duly scored his brace.
So that was it: three-one to the Shrimps. When they were on top, they didn’t drop-off as they have done too many times this season for my liking at least. Tonight, they continued to press and as result could have scored more goals had not the visiting goalkeeper and his woodwork intervened. Who would have thought this was largely the same lethargic side who played so poorly barely a couple of days ago? The win helped them to remain in fifth place at the end of the evening. Crawley – who looked like a pretty good team most of the time tonight and certainly play the game in the right way – slipped one place to fourteenth.
Morecambe: 12 Mark Halstead; 3 Stephen Hendrie (22 Liam Gibson 83’); 21 Ryan Cooney; 6 Harry Davis; 5 Sam Lavelle (C); 9 Cole Stockton; 10 Aaron Wildig (8 Toumani Diagouraga 74’); 7 Jordan Slew; 15 Brad Lyons (16 John O’Sullivan 33’); 11 Carlos Mendes-Gomes; 24 Yann Songo’o.
Subs not used: 1 Kyle Letheren; 2 Kelvin Mellor; 19 Liam McAlinden; 20 Alex Denny.
Crawley Town: 1 Glenn Morris; 4 George Francomb (C); 19 Jordan Tunnicliffe; 5 Joe McNemey; 34 Jordan Maguire-Drew; 39 Jake Hessenthaler (11 Tyler Frost 75’); 8 Jack Powell; 25 Nick Tsaroulla (38 James Tilley 64’); 10 Ashley Nadesan; 29 Jake Hesketh (44 Josh Wright 64’); 16 Tom Nichols.
Subs not used: 37 Stuart Nelson; 15 Archie Davies; 18 David Sesay.
Ref: Oliver Langford.
