On a rain-drenched pitch, Wigan Athletic’s first half team included no natural strikers, with Cywka acting as a lone up-front man.
It was half an hour before Wigan Athletic created a chance that resulted in a corner, coming from some marvellous work from N’Zogbia who was, in the first half the best man on the field. Crewe took the game to Wigan Athletic, with Kirkland making two or three great saves to deny the Alex before they scored a header from an excellent cross only for it to be ruled out off-side.
Wigan should have woken up to this threat but they seemed to relax more with Bramble continually trying his ‘sweeping’ clearances to mid-field only for Crewe to chest the ball down and gain control once again.
Crewe pressed on the Wigan back four again, this time resulting in a legal goal straight through the middle of defence with Kirkland standing no chance. Around 5 minutes later Crewe nearly struck again, with the number 11 striker having the confidence to try a very cheeky chip over Kirkland only for the ball to graze the cross bar.
Piling on yet more pressure, Crewe looked a very dominating side, with a shot coming from a corner well-held by Kirkland.
N’Zogbia runs at the Crewe defence, with his shot being blocked and resulting in a second Wigan corner only for Watson to boot straight out again. An absolutely atrocious corner from the young mid-fielder you would have more expected from a Crewe non-regular.
Crewe continued with excellent flowing play in the first half with Wigan finding it very hard to close down, particularly in mid-field.
H/T Crewe 1 Wigan Athletic 0
Time for a change, a full 11 team member change, the most noticable was the inclusion of Holt, Pollit, Melchiot, Boyce, Edman, Brown, Koumas, Gomez and Kupisz. Kupisz acting once again as a lone up-front man.
Crewe start the second half well again, launching another attack on Pollit’s goal.
This time however, Wigan wake up to the fact they are being equalled by Crewe and with Melchiot trying runs down the line with good results. Young mid-fielder Holt is looking for the ball at every opportunity and finding good space, this lad is one to watch for the future.
Edman is also looking more willing, along with Boyce the defence is now pushing on for an equaliser and I know this sounds wrong but we really are not ‘with it’ up front tonight with Kupisz finding it hard. The young centre back Meece, brought down a Crewe striker which looked a blatant penalty but was waved away by the referee.
During this half, an over-zealous steward stopped a Wigan fan from filming parts of the game on his mobile phone. One fan shouted for Martinez to “put a shirt on” whilst some fool aimed ‘Welsh’ abuse at Koumas.
Brown was playing his usual self and letting the Crewe players know that he was on the pitch, quite miraculously walking away from a tackle without a yellow card. On the other hand, others were being pushed off the ball by Crewe, most looking very soft in the tackle others un-interested when challenged.
Towards the end Wigan picked up the pace and Melchiot had one shot cannon off the post, with another from Brown well-saved by the Crewe keeper.
I believe we should have won this game 2-1 but we were completely toothless up-front.
F/T. Crewe 1 Wigan Athletic 0
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