Crewe Alexandra slipped back into the relegation zone after a 5-1 defeat against Preston North End.
The club were hoping to build on the 2-0 victory against Scunthorpe United last weekend. After the match, manager Stephen Davies said that the players should be a lot stronger if they are to avoid defeats like this. This heavy defeat also hurts the club’s goal difference, which could play a major role in the relegation fight towards the end of the season. Crewe Alexandra already have one of the poorest defensive records in the division and this just got worse after this heavy defeat.
The situation does not look good for the team after having managed just one win in the last five matches. This is in sharp contrast to their form during the months of January and early February. During this period, the club suffered only two league defeats and this is the kind of form that manager Davis will be targeting if they are to avoid relegation. Davies was especially unhappy with some of the aspects of the match against Preston. Despite going into halftime with a 2-1 score, Crewe failed to turn up in the second half and were punished by the home team.
Davies was also not happy with some of the refereeing decisions.”We did really well to get ourselves back in it, after conceding two poor goals, and I thought we deserved Ollie’s (Turton) goal. We were pleased with 2-1 at half-time.We had a decent amount of play after the restart and got the ball in the net for the equaliser, which was disallowed. That was a game-changing moment.It could have been 2-2, but then we were 3-1 down, and in the last 20 minutes they just wore us down. Costly errors were made,” said Davies.