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Another week of travelling for our squad to endure, and an exit from the Johnstones Paint Trophy to forget about. We travel to Crewe for a very tough looking fixture, in my mind. Crewe had a pretty poor season last time around, but have started well this year. It's been a fairly quiet start, unnoticed, unlike ours was, but throw in a couple of crazy results (7-0 against Barnet, 5-5 at Chesterfield) and you can already see that the goals are being scored by the Railwaymen. We will need our defence to play like they did for the 998 minutes to get anything from this game.

LAST 5 SEASONS.

2005/06 - Championship - 22nd place - 42 points
2006/07 - League One - 13th place - 60 points
2007/08 - League One - 20th place - 50 points
2008/09 - League One - 22nd place - 46 points
2009/10 - League Two - 18th place - 55 points

As you can see, the club has been in a decline for the past 5 seasons. The fall from the Championship to League 2 is quite a big one, but Crewe are among the big teams in the basement division. I think they have built a squad good enough for a top 10 finish in League 2, and with Dario Gradi still in charge, I can see him bringing some success to the club again soon.

HEAD TO HEAD.

Crewe wins - 16
Torquay wins - 21
Draws - 15

As you can see, we have a slightly better record in the past games against Crewe. The two sides have never met in a cup competition, either. Last season was the first time the two clubs have met for a long time, 16 seasons to be exact. Last seasons meetings both finished 1-1, with Crewe scoring a late equaliser at Gresty Road, and another late equaliser at Plainmoor.

FORM. (LAST 6 GAMES).

WDDDDW.

The Railwaymen are currently on an 8-match unbeaten run, since they lost against Ipswich in the Carling Cup 2nd Round. However, only a quarter of that run has been wins, with 6 draws. Since they beat Bury 3-0 in the league, they drew 3 consecutive games 1-1, before that incredible 5-5 draw at Chesterfield last weekend. They then beat Macclesfield 4-2 away in the JPT 2nd Round last night. Their home form is looking very good, only losing to Hereford on the opening day, and Ipswich. They have had impressive results against Derby, Barnet (7-0) and Bury. Their previous two home games were draws with Oxford and Macclesfield.

PROBABLE LINE UP.

This is the line up that started the JPT victory at Macclesfield:

Rhys Taylor

Matt Tootle
David Artell
Patrick Ada
Danny Blanchett

Luke Murphy
Lee Bell
Ashley Westwood
Byron Moore

Clayton Donaldson
Joel Grant

PLAYERS TO WATCH.

For me, the players to watch are Clayton Donaldson, Joel Grant and Lee Bell. Donaldson seems to have started the season well, with 3 goals to his name. He is a tall striker who did score the equaliser against us at Plainmoor last season. Joel Grant is a winger and a striker, who has lightning pace, so will need to be marked tightly. Lee Bell made a summer move from Macclesfield, and he has 2 goals to his name already - which isn't bad going for a tough tackling midfielder in my opinion. He is energetic, and we will need Mansell to make it a hard game for Bell.

PREDICTION.

Another lot of travelling, but some players were rested for the Swindon game. However, I still think Crewe will have too much for us.

Crewe 2-0 Torquay

Not often I post a prediction, not often I'm completely negative and not often I think we have absolutely no chance in a game, but I fear we will lose this match 3-0.
We don't really look like scoring and, sadly, those heady days of 998 seem a very long forgotten memory to me.

I desperately hope I'm worng, but it seems that no matter how well we play, we just haven't got anyone to stick the ball in the goal. I cite Shrewsbury as the perfect example, we all know that, for 90 minutes, we played Shrews off the park and we even giftem them their only chance (from which they took the lead) but we still managed to come away with just one goal (a penner, having already missed one) and just a point.
We haven't scored in open play since our consolation against Southend (I am willing to be corrected on this if it turns out to be wrong).

Not the most optomistic first reply to yet another of Nick's wonderful match threads, but I think the majority of dotnetters will agree with me.

Matt.

I'm the same. I actually think it will be more than 2-0, but didn't want to be seen as ultra negative! Haha.

The number of goals is really worrying, though.

5-1 drubbing they gonna whip our tail feathers.

0-1 Torquay! Benners to score.

A few mad results for Crewe, I think there all goanna be very confident but I think Crewe are goanna do a "Torquay" and lose by a tight score after good results.

Hopefully anyway!

Yellow Army!

For once I feel optimistic. Usually I am the one who forecasts heavy defeats (I thought we would lose 0-5 at Shrewsbury), but I think the tide has turned and that we will come away with a decent win. Thus:
Crewe Alexandra (0) 1
Torquay United (1) 3

Att: 3,087.

5-1? Have people forgotten our performance of just four days ago? If it wasn't for a rare individual error, we would have won the game deservedly 1-0. Yes Crewe are in decent form, but so were Shrewsbury. I think the result last night wasn't that bad considering arguably our two best players, Branston and Zebroski were rested - and Swindon were playoff finalists last year. We are a good, solid team with some decent attacking players. I'll go for a 1-1 as we gradually rebuild our season.

My attendance at away games has been shocking so far this season. I would struggle even to defend myself against a determination that I am now a "Probable Queer". So if you will pardon this and indeed the previous phrase, I'm buggered if I'm going to be getting up on Saturday morning with anything but positive thoughts. Yes, the Alex are scoring a lot of goals but I'm certain that a 1-1 is well within our compass. You never know: if one of Elliott's mishits gets a lucky deflection we may even leave the train-spotting capital of South Cheshire with all three points! Any Crewe pub recommendations?

JamieE wrote:5-1? Have people forgotten our performance of just four days ago? If it wasn't for a rare individual error, we would have won the game deservedly 1-0. Yes Crewe are in decent form, but so were Shrewsbury. I think the result last night wasn't that bad considering arguably our two best players, Branston and Zebroski were rested - and Swindon were playoff finalists last year. We are a good, solid team with some decent attacking players. I'll go for a 1-1 as we gradually rebuild our season.

This is EXACTLY my point. We dominated totally the Shrews match for 90 minutes and yet we scored one measly goal (and that was a penner). This would suggest that, should we not quite play that well again, we will get beaten, because it's almost certain that we won't get one penalty, let alone two.

Matt.

No reason really to be pessamistic. A team has up and downs over the season. We're a decent team playing another decent team. I'll go with the same prediction I made for the Shrews match; 1:1. Goalscorer Robertson or Ellis.

Plain fact is we are not winning any games - ok a decent peformance at Shrewsbury, but we are not scoring goals, we are not winning and seem to be on the sort of run that came along far to often last season. I would be looking at our points total from games played recently as a better indicator than the fact we played well last Saturday. However well we played, we actually played one up front and scored one goal which was a penalty - no indication that we are going to outsore Crewe really.

brucie wrote: no indication that we are going to outsore Crewe really.

I'm sure that Branston will make sure we give them something to remember us by

Crewe seem to play an open style of footie which we will normally do well against (eg Shrews/Vale etc). Is it just me that thinks the big problem we have is against teams that get 10 behind the ball and look to catch us on the break (eg Accy/Maccy)?

Can't see us winning.

2-0 Crewe or 1-1(Zebroski) I can't decide!!


I'd take a point right now.

0-1 Oastler 90+3