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Crewe Alexandra 0 Stockport County 3

Simon Smedley
26/11/2008

CONFIDENT County made sure there was to be no dramatic return to the Crewe hot seat for the evergreen Dario Gradi on Saturday.

Much had been made of Gradi’s return in place of Steve Holland in the week, but second-half goals from Craig Davies, Anthony Pilkington and sub Peter Thompson made sure the Alex remain rooted to the bottom of League One.

Gaffer Jim Gannon made just the one change to his starting line-up following the midweek thumping of Yeovil, and it was a straight-forward one in the middle of the park with Dominic Blizzard returning to replace Gary Dicker.

The travelling army were once again in tremendous voice as they filled one full side of the stadium, but they were almost stunned after two minutes.

Clayton Donaldson neatly chested the ball into Shaun Miller’s path, and his fierce drive produced a super stop from Owain fon Williams.

Donaldson then flashed an acrobatic effort over the County crossbar.

The Hatters’ first opportunity came after 12 minutes. Michael Rose’s cross wasn’t cleared, and Jason Taylor fired the loose ball wide from just outside the Alex box.

Davies then teed up Dominic Blizzard, but his 25-yard shot flew harmlessly over.

Davies and Pilkington saw shots blocked within seconds of each other, and County were getting on top as the quarter point of the game approached.

Matty McNeil’s snapshot was well stopped by Steve Collis, then Davies turned Danny Woodards inside out before firing a super shot from 25 yards inches past the post.

The Hatters thought they’d got their deserved goal on the half-hour mark. Davies knocked in a rebound after Collis had beaten out Blizzard’s piledriver, but he was adjudged to have done so from an offside position.

County were all over Crewe, but fon Williams was then called upon to keep out a fine drive from John Brayford.

Five minutes before the break County had a real scare when Joel Grant let fly from well outside the box, only for his shot to bounce back out off the crossbar.

County’s breakthrough came three minutes into the second half. Davies whipped the ball by Daniel O’Donnell on the right, before unleashing a cracking angled drive which Collis just couldn’t handle.

Davies pointed to the heavens in celebration, and everything was now pointing towards another County away victory.

With a little of the pressure off now, County began to play some quite beautiful football.

Neat passing and movement, and on 66 minutes the lead was doubled.

Rose played the ball inside to Pilkington, and he twisted and turned before lashing home a sweet shot past Collis from 20 yards.

Sub Gary Dicker hit a shot just past the post seconds after coming on, then with 10 minutes left Davies showed yet more power and pace before seeing another shot blocked.

The impressive victory was wrapped up in style deep into stoppage-time when Thompson stooped to head home after Leon McSweeney’s cross had been knocked temptingly into his path by Blizzard.