Ohio River Boat Song

Crewe 1 Southend 0

In lieu of the usual pre-match walk (stymied by having to work till 5.30) I decided to try a pre-match lucky curry. I'm pleased to report that it worked and, with another Tuesday night game coming up, I get to do it again next week. Sheek kebab to start, Chicken rezala and pilau rice for a main and two pints of Cobra, for those that are interested. I'll be having that same meal next week, sat at the same table. Yep, I'm sad.
Fully fed and watered it was off to the ground to take in the game. Southend had a pretty similar record to Crewe's and both sides still harbour ambitions of reaching the play-offs. I'm not sure either side will make it, but there's usually one side that has a late spurt to scrape into the top seven and these sides have as good a chance as any. I would say that Crewe had a better chance as their run in features a lot of games against teams in the bottom half, but frankly, Crewe's record against teams at the wrong end of the table is appalling.
Well, the first half wasn't that good, to be honest, although Crewe created chances with both Artell and Bell hitting the bar. Both teams were a bit sluggish and the tempo never really picked up. Murphy and Moore switched sides and Moore certainly got more joy from their full back than Murphy had, but to be fair to Murphy, he's a central midfielder playing out wide.
With Westwood limping out of the game at half time, there was a bit of a reshuffle for Crewe, with Murphy moving into central midfield and Shelley coming on out wide. The move paid dividends as young Shelley had a stormer of a second half and Crewe's increased tempo saw them take the game to Southend. In the 65th minute, some good work by Shelley gave him room to pick out Donaldson in the area. he skipped past a challenge and hit off a shot which was saved by the keeper. The rebound fell to Miller in the middle of the area and despite almost fluffing his chance, he buried it, to give Crewe the lead. After that, Crewe had a couple of further chances to extend their lead but Donaldson saw his lob come back off the bar and then Artell put an easy header just wide. with Crewe seeming comfortable and cruising, Dario made another change, taking off Byron Moore and bringing on Joel Grant. Instead of a straight swap though, Grant went to centre-forward and Donaldson out to the wing in a sort of 4-3-3 formation. Clearly Donaldson was unhappy with that, but that was what Dario wanted. Grant struggled to retain the ball when it was played up to him though and gradually Southend managed to apply some pressure on the Crewe goal. They were still reduced to shooting from distance and Crewe keeper, Taylor, has shown plenty of times this season that he's a decent shot stopper. Grant did create one final chance for Miller in the last few minutes, but Miller put his shot straight into the keeper's arms. There was still time for Southend to appeal for a penalty, but the referee wasn't interested and instead blew for full time.
There was a bit of a feeling that Crewe had fallen over the line in this one, but in truth, there were very few alarms in the Crewe defence and all the pressure Southend exerted was caused by Dario's late substitution. with Donaldson missing in action on the wing, there was no one to hold the ball up when it was cleared and so it tended to come straight back through the Southend midfield, They weren't up to much though and it was a comfortable three points. The play-off dream lives on for another few days at least!