Mansfield Town 1 v Crewe Alexandra 1 - EFL Trophy (Crewe won a bonus point on penalties)

Tuesday 8th October 2019

Leasing.com EFL Trophy - Northern Group E

Mansfield Town (1) 1

Jimmy Knowles 18

Crewe Alexandra (1) 1

Oli Finney 45

Attendance: 800 (inc. 39 away fans)

Crewe won the bonus point penalty shoot out 3-4

Mansfield Town:

Bobby Olejnik, Matt Preston (C), Conor Shaughnessy, Willem Tomlinson (Jacob Mellis 52’ (Mal Benning 71’)), Ryan Sweeney, Dapo Afolayan, Andy Cook, James Clarke, CJ Hamilton, Jimmy Knowles (Khan 83’), Ali Smith.

Unused subs - Nicky Maynard, Kellan Gordon, Kian Sketchley.

Crewe Alexandra: 

Dave Richards, Perry Ng (C), Ryan Wintle, Eddie Nolan, Callum Ainley, Paul Green (James Jones 77), Oli Finney, Chuma Anene, Owen Dale (Charlie Kirk 83), Travis Johnson, Rio Adebisi (Harry Pickering 83).

Unused subs - Sam Booth, Chris Porter, Nicky Hunt, Josh Lundstram.  

A record equalling all time record low crowd of 800 for Mansfield Town, bolstered by 39 hardy souls from Crewe, witnessed this 1-1 stalemate of a draw, between two sides, whose respective line ups, were barely recognisable from the teams that played on Saturday for both the Stags and the Alex.
In actual fact while the visitors made eight changes, Mansfield only featured just one player: Ryan Sweeney, who'd made the starting eleven at Grimsby Town at the weekend, when John Dempster's side had returned home from the Lincolnshire coast with a morale boosting victory.

For the record, the last time that Field Mill was so sparsely populated for a first team game, was way back on Wednesday, March 8th 1939, when the Stags beat Torquay United 4-0 in a Third Division South fixture.

Tonight's game wasn't exactly the most competitive contest that I've ever watched, but was played, for the most part, at the same tempo that you'd expect of a 'friendly' game, which it virtually was, if you consider that both managers were giving a good number of their fringe players the opportunity to get some match minutes under their belts, while also fielding several youngsters.

Effectively, you could say that this was, ironically, to all intents and purposes, a B team game.

Which, of course, meant that such a spectacle wouldn't be everybody's liking, but I was suitably intrigued, by virtue of wanting to monitor the performance of players like: Dapo Afolayan, James Clarke, Jimmy Knowles and Ali Smith... and wouldn't have even dreamt of missing such an opportunity, should it ever present itself.
Afolayan got in amongst the visitors and was always willing to take men on, so much so, that Crewe tweaked their system at the interval, to give the loanee from West Ham United less time on the ball to express himself.

Clarke motored up and down the flanks to good effect, Smith's distribution and range of passing was a joy to behold... and, of course, Knowles netted his first ever first team goal in the eighteenth minute, picking up a stray pass from the visitors Owen Dale, before adjusting the ball in a flash to optimise his shooting options and burying it into the bottom left hand corner, beyond the reach of Dave Richards.

When I last saw Matt Preston play, on Tuesday 17th September, he was shown a second straight red card of the season, in the Stags home game v. Cambridge United. His attitude was, at best, questionable, his temperament was off the scale and his indiscipline was clear for all to see. But, tonight, he was named as the home side's captain. A decision that initially, gasted my flabber somewhat. Yet, he excelled in the role and took on the added responsibility like a good 'un.

Preston, who is still suspended from appearing in League games, was eligible to play in this less prestigious competition tonight... and whatever you might think about the pros and cons of giving him an outing, as far as man management goes, trusting him the armband, with hindsight, appears to have been a masterstroke on the part of John Dempster, who, according to several of his critics, has no man management skills and struggles to deal with problematic first teamers, because he's out of his depth managing anything but teenagers.
Maybe people should consider, that Dempster has often had the unenviable task of sitting down face to face, with young men in their early twenties, who, after being involved with the club at both U18 and U21 level for up to four years, are having to be told that they're now surplus to requirements.

I'd imagine that takes far more tact, diplomacy and ruthlessness, than bollocking an errant first teamer for not tracking back after losing the ball, or for getting sent off and leaving his team-mates short handed, exposed and over-run.
The Stags manager, who was pivotal to their promotion team as a player, when they re-emerged from a five year stint in non-league football, has done his time and has the respect of his peers... and it's high time that people stopped treating him dismissively, like someone who just walked in off of the streets and coached a few kids.

One massive boost for the Stags tonight, was that a game of this nature, allowed goalkeeper Bobby Olejnik to play a full ninety minutes, having been out of action since picking up an injury in training back in December. He was steady enough on his return to the fold, but was beaten by a curious bugger of a freak goal, to out-freak any other that I've seen in a long while.
Right on the stroke of half time, Callum Ainley got forward on the left for the visitors and passed sideways to Oli Finney, who appeared to have taken the ball too far towards the dead ball line, before finding the side-netting with a last ditch hopeful punt across the six yard box. The linesman signalled for a goal kick and I thought that was that.

But, looking across the pitch (I was sat straight in line with the penalty spot at the Quarry Lane End, I spotted that the ball was in the back of the net, bust assumed that the ground staff couldn't have secured the netting properly and it had gone in through a gap. And when the referee James Oldham approached his assistant for a conflab, it seemed safe to assume, that they were only debating whether Crewe might have a good claim for a corner or not, if Finney's delivery had taken a deflection.
But Olejnik's reaction revealed another scenario as the referee whistled and pointed to the centre spot, confirming that Crewe had equalised.
And having watched the incident again after the game, I'm still uncertain as to how the ball defied geometry and end up beating Olejnik.

It would be unfair to single the Stags keeper out for any kind of criticism, because it was, to all intents and purposes, a fluke goal, but one must wonder just how certain hostile sections of the Field Mill crowd would've reacted, if their whipping boy: Conrad Logan, had conceded such a goal.

Crewe passed the ball to death in second half, but though they raised their game, it was all foreplay and heavy petting, sans any real penetration and the game ended 1-1, which meant both teams got a point... but a penalty shoot-out would determine which side got an extra bonus one, to add to their Northern Group E total.

Late in the day, Artell had sent on Charlie Kirk and Harry Pickering from the bench, obviously with one eye on the clock, while gambling that in all likelihood, we were heading towards penalties. Subsequently, both of them scored in the ensuing shoot-out, which the Railwaymen won 3-4. 

Olejnik saved the visitors first kick from Ng, but Cook (who still appears to be some way off of reaching anything like full match fitness) prodded his kick straight at Richards, who didn't even need to move, as the unconvincing strike bounced off of his shins.

Smith was denied by a 'worldly' of a save from Richards; while the remainder of the kicks were converted successfully... and when Kirk netted the visitors last kick, that was that.

FT: Mansfield Town 1 v Crewe Alexandra 1

Because of the mathematics of this unloved competition, Mansfield could still qualify for the next stage if they win their remaining group game at Burton Albion on Tuesday 12th November, probably via using the Duckworth-Lewis method, or something equally unfathomable.

Some people are boycotting games in this competition... they have their reasons and I applaud them for sticking to their guns. But, if anybody wants to lambaste me for turning out to watch a game of football, of my own vocation, because I was genuinely interested to see what happened, while running the rule over a number of the developing players who played tonight (for both teams), then please feel free to get off of your high horse and track me down in person, at whatever youth team game I'm taking in on Saturday morning, en route to a first team fixture (of my choice) in the afternoon. Each to their own, innit!?