Tonight night sees our penultimate home fixture of this season as Crewe Alexandra visit Blundell Park.

Paul Hurst’s team come into the match off the back of a frustrating 2-0 defeat at Tranmere Rovers on Saturday when a penalty and free-kick found the back of Max Crocombe’s net to send Town to a loss on the Wirral.

That result ended a three-match unbeaten run but still sees the Mariners in mid-table, five places above this evening’s opponents.

Team News

No fresh injury issues were picked up at Tranmere and, as revealed by Hurst last week ahead of the match, Owen Gallacher is back at full fitness and available for selection.

Crewe Alexandra

Following their relegation back to League Two ahead of the current campaign, Crewe have had a tough season. With twelve wins, fifteen draws and fifteen losses from their 42 matches, managerial instability and injuries to key players have meant that the Railwaymen have been unable to get any real form going in recent months.

One such player who has missed a big chunk of the season is Courtney Baker-Richardson, their second top scorer with eight goals, who missed over three-months worth of action with injury before returning last month.

Daniel Agyei is a man who stepped up in the absence of Baker-Richardson and, with 14 goals to his name, is the Railwaymen’s top scorer this campaign.

At the helm of the Crewe ship is manager Lee Bell. He retired from playing in the summer of 2015 before rejoining the Club in 2015 as under-18s coach.

He has been with Crewe ever since and, after becoming interim manager in November, he was given the managerial job on a permanent basis.

Previous Meetings

We have faced tonight’s opponents twice already this season with the Mariners victorious in both matches. The most recent of those came in February when Town visited Gresty Road and left with the three points and three goals when John McAtee, George Lloyd and Tom Dickson-Peters got on the scoresheet for the Mariners. Highlights of that match can be seen HERE.

The teams have played against each other 67 times in the past with Town victorious in 27 compared to Crewe’s 25.

Referee

Darren Handley is the man in charge of today’s match. This will be the second time he has refereed a Town game this season after being the man in the middle when we lost 1-0 away to AFC Wimbledon in December.

He will be assisted by Ivan Stankovic and Daniel Woodward.

Coverage

Tonight’s match is available for live streaming on Mariners TV to UK and overseas supporters. Match passes are available for £10 HERE.

UTM