Continuity is king for Peterborough at luckless Crewe

Peterborough United put eight goals past Crewe Alexandra the last time these sides met in the same division, doing the double with 5-1 and 3-0 victories in 2015-16.

Those games were symptomatic of an ill-fated 2015-16 campaign for the Alex, who finished bottom of League One conceding 83 goals.

Long-serving manager Steve Davis was unable to stop the rot in League Two the following season but David Artell has since led the re-building process and the Railwaymen returned to the third tier playing sumptuous, free-flowing football, with exciting young talent across the board.

Artell will be pleased with how his side have implemented their game at this level, but finishing chances has been a problem, with the Cheshire outfit failing to find the net six times in ten league games.

Peterborough, meanwhile, look ruthless in attack, despite having lost the division’s top goalscorer from 2019-20 in Ivan Toney.

The replacement for Toney, now starring at Brentford, has been Jonson Clarke-Harris, who looks unlikely to find the net at quite the same rate – though he is the joint-second top goalscorer in League One with six – but may bring more out of his teammates.

Clarke-Harris’ industrial graft and strong hold-up play has unleashed the goalscoring potential in the sparkling Siriki Dembele, who has already matched his league tally of five goals from last season.

Dembele is an extremely hard player to defend against because he is so unpredictably skillful and most players with his pace would simply knock the ball forward and run onto it, but the former Grimsby man has the ability to use both feet whilst dribbling with the ball at speed.

Clarke-Harris’ presence and Dembele’s trickery already makes Posh a threat but Sammie Szmodics completes the equilibrium of their attacking play with his constant running and selfless movement into wide areas, which drags defenders out of position.

That attacking will offer a tough examination, therefore, of Crewe, who have suffered a 1-0 defeat in each of their last three league games; in fact, losses by that scoreline account for 50% of their league campaign to date.

Artell’s side are yet to concede more than twice and, averaging 1.15 Expected Goals For (xGF) per game and 1.14 Against (xGA), they have a Ratio (xGR) of 50.40%, which is the 11^th best in the division, so they are not getting outplayed.

Rather, they are finding themselves on the wrong end of fine margins, evidenced by the misfortune in their last league game.

Against Gillingham, Crewe mustered 21 efforts at goal to six, twice hit the woodwork, were foiled by an absolutely fabulous goalkeeping display from Joe Lumley and saw Charlie Kirk prod wide from eight yards.

Kirk’s left-sided combination play with Harry Pickering had been a key feature of The Alex’s play in League Two and it is certainly causing teams problems at this level.

The winger stays wide for much of the build-up play to stretch the pitch while Pickering interprets space with delightful intelligence, sometimes drifting infield to create or have an effort at goal, allowing his wing partner to ghost in toward the near-post at the latter stages of moves unchartered.

Posh’s cynical, streetwise defender Nathan Thompson will need to use all his experience to stop Kirk in his tracks, while the selfless Joe Ward – from a more advanced role on the flank – must be savvy to Pickering’s technical capabilities.

Thompson, Ward and left-sider Dan Butler are three players who can easily change roles as Darren Ferguson switches between 3-4-2-1 and 4-2-3-1, giving the Scot the freedom to tweak his strategy and adapt to the opposition without altering personnel.

Butler starred in the previous league game, a 2-0 victory at Bristol Rovers, where his bold runs from deep, accurate deliveries and strong link-up play made him a key creative force, on top of a blockbuster of a strike that sealed the game.

The former Newport man has started all 11 league games, as has aerial centre-back Mark Beevers, ball-playing defender Frankie Kent, goalkeeper Christy Pym and Clarke-Harris while Szmodics, Thompson and all-action midfielder Jack Taylor join the quartet in double-figures.

Peterborough are one of the few League One sides who have a stable first XI and that tactical consistency could give them an advantage over others, who are chopping and changing to keep up with the hectic schedule.

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