“Yo listen up, here’s a story about a little guy that lives in Crewe. And all day and all night and everything he sees is Crewe – inside and outside…” – if Italian three-piece Italo dance slash Eurodance groups aren’t your thing, that will have passed you by. And that might be for the best, because no-one really remembers the music served up in 1999 with any great fondness. The industry was just mucking around until the Millennium came around.
And so onto Crewe Alexandra.
This one is a big deal, if you ask us. At the moment, they’re the team who ought to be well and truly in our crosshairs. They’re 20th and we’re nine points behind them with a couple of games up our sleeve. If we win, we go six behind and still with a couple in hand. There’s the simple math for you. A defeat might not necessarily mean the end of days for hopes of remaining in League One , but we won’t be able to pass it off as “just a flesh wound”.
In our favour is our record against Crewe. Five matches against ’em and they’re still yet to get the better of us. Before you get all excited, however, we’ve never beaten them at home – two draws at the Lamex, when we’ve won all three at theirs. It’s a comfort to learn their away record is no better than ours. Three wins out of 16 on the road and 37 goals shipped – we make that a league high. But they’ve scored 17, while we’ve scored 15 at home. Ouch.
Chuks Aneke has somehow scored four in Crewe’s last four games. Just think about that.
There was a time this season that Crewe were leading the race to League Two, but they’ve picked up over the last 10 games. In fact, they’ve won half of them in a topsy-turvy run of form. You don’t need us to spell out our form over the last 10 in comparison, do you? We have one more nugget of info for you – Crewe have won once away at a bottom half team. We’ve won once at home against a bottom half team. This one could be an epic.
All the information to stake a stick at:
[expand title=”WE’VE MET BEFORE…”]
| 22 Oct 2013 | A | Sky Bet League One | 3-0 |
| 05 Jan 2013 | A | npower League One | 2-1 |
| 15 Sep 2012 | H | npower League One | 2-2 |
| 19 Feb 2011 | A | npower League Two | 1-0 |
| 04 Sep 2010 | H | npower League Two | 1-1 |
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Tin helmets at the ready – the Football League have called Darren Sheldrake and asked him to take charge of this latest outing. If you hadn’t remembered, he’s the one who found it appropriate to throw his yellow card around like it was confetti in this season’s opening game against Oldham Athletic. In fact, he’s doled out so many cards so far you could paint him orange and call him Clintons.
Our paths first crossed back on a cold Thursday night in 2008 when a Mitchell Cole brace earned us victory at Grays Athletic. Since then, our record hasn’t been all that shabby and includes the 5-1 win versus Sheffield Wednesday, for example. Take out the Oldham game and the card count is fine too – the only Boro’ player to charm Sheldrake’s red card out of his pocket was Chuks Aneke… now at Crewe Alexandra.
This season for Darren Sheldrake:
Games: 22 — Yellow: 87 (3.95pg), Red: 5
Our record under Darren Sheldrake:
P7 W4 D0 L3 F15 A8 — Yellow: 10, Red: 1
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[expand title=”BOOKIE BASHING”]
Titan Bet? Risk-free £10 wager? Click on their name and you can make it happen to turn our match with Crewe into a tasty little earner. Now, what are you thinking? This season, Boro’ home games produce an average of 2.5 goals exactly. Exclude the Oldham game and form suggests Under 2.5 is where to go – it’s gone that way eight out of 14 times. You can get on board that at 17/20. The draw is 11/5. And 1-1 is 11/2. What’s yo flava?
But if you’d rather, check out what the alternatives are offering.
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