FA Cup Replay

[Crewe99]

Tonight's line-up
Garratt
Turton, Davis, Dugdale, Guthrie
Atkinson, Grant, Ness
Cooper, Saunders, Inman
Subs - Shearer, Ray, Waters, Baillie, Jones, Leigh, Tate.

[RabidDog]

Bit lightweight tonight I thought. Cooper looked way out of his depth, Saunders tried but is neither quick enough nor strong enough at this level. Duggie and Davis looked fine as did Guthrie apart from being done for the last goal. Turton just about did enough but was stretched. Atkinson and Ness don't do it for me. Inman shows quality in snatches. Grant by far the best player with Ben looking good in goal. Blades were worthy of the 2 goal win even though we had 2 great chances in the first half. I think if we had better attacking options we would have run them close tonight. As you would expect we won zero headers in the attacking half and tended to play some nice football but generally moved it too slowly.

[KennyLuntsFanClub]

When is SD going to learn that selecting Ness from the start = defeat. This may just be a coincidence, but surely more to do with ability. Why is he still here?

[itwasin]

I think your trying to say Crewe are now a typical 2nd Div side,as we play like one.
They still get caught out by quick corners,and throw ins Never learn!!

[AlexLeicester]

Bit lightweight tonight I thought. Cooper looked way out of his depth, Saunders tried but is neither quick enough nor strong enough at this level. Duggie and Davis looked fine as did Guthrie apart from being done for the last goal. Turton just about did enough but was stretched. Atkinson and Ness don't do it for me. Inman shows quality in snatches. Grant by far the best player with Ben looking good in goal. Blades were worthy of the 2 goal win even though we had 2 great chances in the first half. I think if we had better attacking options we would have run them close tonight. As you would expect we won zero headers in the attacking half and tended to play some nice football but generally moved it too slowly.

Thanks for that. Good, considered comments from someone who was there are always helpful.
Typically, you have not been 'rabidly' Alex and it's a balanced report. :-)

[bigroof]

It was a bit of a strange line-up. That's twice Steve has opted for a back four against Sheffield, though he didn't in the first cup tie.

It was always going to be a case of hitting them on the break, regardless of system. Cooper, who certainly struggled to have an impact on the game, did manage a decent goalbound shot from outside the box - or so it looked from the other end where we were sat; the goalie saved that and the follow up from Saunders, close-in. Have yet to see it, but their stadium announcer, apologising for not having highlights on their big screen, felt obliged to give the double save a special mention. Of course, 'goals change games' and Sheffield were in front barely two minutes later, as a short corner caught some napping; the ball was bundled in after the low hard cross hit Ben and a defender.

Another counter-attack saw Inman hit the post, and it was one of those where the ball seemed to roll along the line then to safety.

So the game could've been so much diffe

[MikeSB]

Thanks for that Derek. I just listened on Radio Stoke. And as you say, goals change games and its hard both on the player, manager and fans when Saunders seemed to have a cast iron chance to score, he hit the ball straight at the GK? That worries me more because strikers with natural ability (to bring that in once again) don't normally do that and will always look to put it wide of the GK every time. No doubt his coaches will tell him this or that and playing by numbers is not quite the same. AJ was similar and many so called strikers have the same coaching and yet?

It was his first start? and we need to be charitable and give him many more games but then its obvious that a lot of these kids are finding D1 opposition just a little too much and by playing them we are risking more defeats and points will be hard to come by as we don't seem to have anybody who we can rely on yet to get the goals. Unfortunately we don't seem to have any other choice. Other than that we are at least co

[RenegadeDS]

We could and should have been 1-0 up before conceding the first goal - Cooper's shot being parried by their 'keeper only for him to make a stunning save from Saunders' follow up. After Brad hit the post shortly after that it was never going to be our night - we did absolutely nothing worthy of excitement in the second half and I strongly believe if we'd still been there now we wouldn't have scored.

We weren't bad, however. We just lacked any cutting edge up front. Atkinson was relatively invisible and Ness was bloody awful but on the whole we didn't play too badly - Sheffield United are just better than us.

[alexmick]

We could and should have been 1-0 up before conceding the first goal - Cooper's shot being parried by their 'keeper only for him to make a stunning save from Saunders' follow up. After Brad hit the post shortly after that it was never going to be our night - we did absolutely nothing worthy of excitement in the second half and I strongly believe if we'd still been there now we wouldn't have scored.

We weren't bad, however. We just lacked any cutting edge up front. Atkinson was relatively invisible and Ness was bloody awful but on the whole we didn't play too badly - Sheffield United are just better than us.

Yet he still continues to have faith with Ness. Why? I cannot understand his thinking behind this one at all.

[somersetcrewe]

It was a bit of a strange line-up. That's twice Steve has opted for a back four against Sheffield, though he didn't in the first cup tie.

Yes, especially as the 3 CHs has served us so well recently - with the bombing wing-backs!
Also odd that he would ditch this formation for an away game.
Also odd that we thought SD had learned from his mistake after the Blades home game in the league.

I sincerely hope he reverts at Brisbane Rd on Saturday or I will be seriously miffed!!