Shrewsbury Town earned a valuable point on the road in the Sky Bet League One on Saturday afternoon, as they drew 0-0 against Crewe Alexandra at the Mornflakes Stadium.
Fresh from their experience at Anfield last weekend, Salop were unable to break down a very resilient Crewe side however, the game also saw Salop earn their fourth league clean sheet in a row and Steve Cotterill’s side are now five unbeaten in the league.
Shrewsbury thought they’d gotten off to the perfect start when a corner from Elliott Bennett in the third minute was met at the back post by a Crewe defender who put it into his own net. However, the referee deemed that Daniel Udoh had fouled Crewe goalkeeper David Richards in the process and awarded the home side a free-kick.
It was an end-to-end first half with both sides trying to capitalise on each other’s mistakes and break quickly. The home team failed to create many clear-cut opportunities. Chris Porter headed a tame shot into the hands of Marko Marosi in the 31st minute whilst Bennett did extremely well to block a well-hit shot from Oli Finney in the 37th-minute, although it did strike the Salop man in the face.
All the best opportunities in the first half fell to Salop. Ryan Bowman nearly had a cheeky flick creep in at the near post in the 43rd minute when he got in front of his man following a nice delivery from Nathanael Ogbeta, but the striker could only find the side netting. Udoh almost opened the scoring in first-half stoppage time when he did well to turn his defender but his shot went narrowly wide of the post.
The second half displayed more of the same, however, Salop dominated and spent much of the second period in the Crewe half of the pitch, with the best chances falling the visitors' way as well.
Arguably Salop’s two best chances of the match fell to their two centre-backs in Matthew Pennington and Ethan Ebanks-Landell in the final ten minutes of the match. Pennington rose highest from a corner in the 81st minute and forced a good save from Richards, who just managed to tip the ball over the bar. Then, the traveling Salop fans thought the net was going to ripple in the 84th minute when a beautiful ball into the box from Bennett was met by Ebanks-Landell, but his bullet of a header went narrowly over the crossbar and the sides were forced to settle for a share of the spoils.
The Teams:
Crewe Alexandra: David Richards (GK), Luke Offord, Christopher Long (Tyreece Onyeka 85’), Tom Lowery, Chris Porter, Callum Ainley (Josh Lundstram 83’), Mikael Mandron, Oli Finney, Luke Murphy (C) (Regan Griffiths 14’), Billy Sass-Davies, Travis Johnson
Subs Not Used: Will Jaaskelainen (GK), Sean Lawton, Connor Salisbury, Joel Tabiner
Salop: Marko Marosi (GK), Luke Leahy, Ethan Ebanks-Landell (C), Matthew Pennington, Josh Vela, Daniel Udoh, Ryan Bowman, Nathanael Ogbeta, David Davis, Elliott Bennett, George Nurse
Subs Not Used: Harry Burgoyne (GK), Aaron Pierre, Sam Cosgrove, Rekeil Pyke, Tom Bloxham, Joshua Daniels, Saikou Janneh
Officials:
Referee: Gavin Ward
Assistant Referees: Bhupinder Gill and Mark Dwyer
Fourth Official: Declan Bourne
Bookings:
Regan Griffiths was booked for the home side in the 18th minute for dragging back Daniel Udoh after the forward had got away from the young midfielder.
Billy Sass-Davies was booked in the 63rd minute for dragging back Josh Vela when the Shrewsbury man was on the attack.
