Danny Cowley praises ‘professional away performance’ as Portsmouth sink Crewe

Posted Wednesday, March 09, 2022 by PA

Manager Danny Cowley was pleased his in-form Portsmouth side negotiated a poor playing surface at Crewe to maintain their top-six challenge.

Pompey had this fixture at Gresty Road called off an hour before kick-off last month after a deluge of rain made the surface unplayable.

Parts of the pitch were still not conducive for good football but the visitors demonstrated a predatory instinct when it mattered with two opportunist headed goals from George Hirst and a tap-in from Tyler Walker to seal a 3-1 victory, making it six wins from the last seven games.

Cowley said: “It was a really professional away performance on what was a very difficult surface against a Crewe team who are dangerous when they go behind.

“We were compact and well organised. It was the way you want to start games by getting an early goal and that allowed us to pick them off.

“To get 19 points out of a possible 21 is really good. We needed to be focused and together.

“We’ve invested a lot of time to win this game having come here to have it called off and so it was important to put in a really good performance.

“We’d have liked to have seen the game out with more control but Hayden Carter picked up a calf injury and we had to change it a little bit.

“Hirsty is a good kid and he is very team orientated.

“He’s an important player and he understands the bigger picture so it made sense to take him off as it’s not easy for him to be leading the line every game.”

Leicester loanee Hirst was too strong in the air for Crewe, the side with the third-worst defensive record in League One, heading in Connor Ogilvie’s cross as early as the third minute for the opener.

Walker made up for a poor miss when he failed to convert the rebound after keeper Dave Richards spilled a Ronan Curtis free-kick.

The on-loan Coventry striker profited from a tap-in at the back post after Richards gloved Sean Raggett’s deflected effort just after the half-hour mark.

Pompey’s third in the 66th minute came once again from Hirst’s aerial prowess and another fine delivery from Ogilvie with Richards beaten by a thumping downward header.

By contrast, Crewe have now lost nine of their last 10 games as the trapdoor back to League Two begins to close on them.

Chris Long blasted an effort into the side-netting in the first half and an audacious chip from Josh Lundstram was tipped over by Gavin Bazuna during a grandstand finish, although the game had ebbed away by then.

Long struck the underside of the bar amid a melee and then showed great determination to force a finish under Bazuna’s legs from a difficult angle in stoppage time.

Alex boss Dave Artell insisted: “The players are giving everything and they have not thrown the towel in.

“We have got to stand together and the fans have been brilliant as at most other clubs there would be hell to play.

“In every recent game we’ve had spells and we had 30 to 40 good minutes.

“But goals change games. The two headers weren’t particularly clean efforts but they were able to carve out goals because of that little bit of experience in the box.

“We deserved a goal as we’d had one cleared off the line and hit the bar but by then the game was done and dusted.”