A largely scrappy game played in horrible, blustery conditions and another fantastic victory for Rovers.
I think between them, Norwood and Mellon won us the game tonight and demonstrated why they are our greatest assets. In the first sixty minutes we did not get to grips with the game in midfield at all, with too many stray passes and long balls. That changed when we switched to a 451 and brought on Banks. Smith was having a decent game and he was not the obvious player to take off, but MM realised that we needed to keep our best passers on the pitch - Perkins, Pringle - even if they were not having great games, in order to get control of the midfield. Once the change was made, we settled and looked the better team in the closing stages.
Norwood's performance was immense: he could conceivably have scored a hat trick in a game where we created little for long periods and it was a brilliant take and finish from an acute angle for the decisive goal. I thought Crewe looked a decent side in midfield, but we created the better chances and just about deserved to win. Defensively we were superb again, limiting the visitors to scraps and I never thought we were going to concede, other than the mad moment in the 87th minute when we allowed their centre half to run fifty yards with the ball unopposed.
Individually, I thought Manny was immense and pushed Norwood close for man of the match; Caprice had another great game at right back, defensively and offensively; McCulough did his usual mopping up in front of the back four very well; Perkins seems to have suffered a dip in form and gave the ball away a lot in the first half, but improved when Banks came on.
Our fantastic run continues and we are guaranteed to remain in the top seven over the weekend. More of the same required on Tuesday night.