City Keep on the Rails at Crewe

CAFC U18s 2 - 4 MCFC U18s

With Crewe Alexandra being a bit of a bogey team for City it was expected that they would give us a decent game and they did not disappoint as they twice equalized to make the City youngsters work even harder for their victory. City goals came from the hottest property in youth football, Alex Nimley-Tchuimeni with his fourteenth goal of the season and a fine hat-trick from his strike partner Robbie Mak which takes him up to twelve for the season now.

City took the lead as the game ticked into the third minute with a Nimley penalty after the Crewe goalkeeper brought Nimley down when he was clean through on goal after Captain Kieran Trippier had sent a defence splitting pass into the feet of Nimley. The bizarre aspect of this penalty was that in the letter of the law the goalkeeper should have walked; but the referee did not even have a word with him, never mind giving the lad a booking. The lack of action from this decision led to the assessor having a word with the young referee at half time.

City continued to dominate as they created chance after chance, but could not quite find their range or found the fortunate Crewe goalkeeper on fine form with a few good saves. So Crewe found themselves level in the twenty third minute when the ball was banging around on the edge of the area fell to the Crewe player who curled the ball into the far corner of the net.

Crewe continued to press for an advantage and had Joe Clegg not been at his best as he produced a very high class finger tip save when the Crewe player was clean through and Ahmed Benali headed a ball off the line then City could have been the team that was trailing at half time.

However right on the stroke of half time City regained their lead when midfielder Andrew Tutte turned well in the centre of the field and left the Crewe player before sending a ball through for Mak to charge onto and drill into the bottom corner of the net after he had twice fired across the goal and gone close and so he deceived the goalkeeper with this shot.

Whilst continuing to press forward to stretch their advantage a lose forward pass was intercepted by Crewe seventeen minutes after the half time break and they pressed forward and found a shot in the penalty area that came off the underside of the bar and was clawed away by Clegg in the City goal; but the referee's assistant had said it had crossed the line and so the equalizing goal was awarded.

Nearly ten minutes later and City re-took the lead for the third time in the match when Trippier played a ball forward to Mak with his back to goal and he turned well and the defender was tight on him but then lost his footing as Mak powered into the box and fired his shot into the far corner of the goal.

City killed the game off in their favour in the ninetieth minute when Abdi Ibrahim saw Mak in space just over the half way line and he raced forward with the ball being very strong and holding two defenders off before slowing and then bursting into the box to give himself that half yard before curling the ball into the far corner of the goal to keep their four goal per game average on track after twelve games.

City very nearly made it five goals a minute later but the Crewe defence put in a last ditch tackle to deny City what would have been a very unfair score line in their favour.

The top of the table stays as you are as Liverpool beat Everton two nil at home and Manchester United beat local rivals Bolton four one at Carrington. City face Wolverhampton Wanderers next week at Platt lane before the first team's first Saturday 3pm kick off of the season against Arsenal.


City: Clegg(GK), Trippier(Capt.), Cunningham, Wabara, Boyata, Tutte, Benali, Ibrahim, Mak, Nimley-Tchuimeni, Chantler.

Subs: E Johansen(GK), Tse, Elabadellaoiu, Guidetti, Redshaw.


The U16s were disappointed as they lost their unbeaten season's record as they lost 3-1.