TEEN WALKER OFF MARK TO SINK SILKMEN
TEENAGER Stephen Walker earned the plaudits after his first senior goal helped Crewe sink Macclesfield and cement their promotion push.
The on-loan Middlesbrough striker doubled Crewe’s lead 10 minutes before the break when he conjured a precise finish past Town goalkeeper Jonathan Mitchell for his landmark strike, after Chris Porter had fired Alex ahead from the spot.
Railwaymen boss David Artell said: “Stephen is a good player – you don’t play for England Under-19s if you’re not very good.
“He’s come in and hit the ground running and that is all credit to him. I told him he was here to score goals and it was a great finish. He was a real threat all game and a thorn in Macclesfield’s side.”
Porter’s 11th-minute penalty, awarded for a trip by Fraser Horsfall on Perry Ng, set the front-runners on their way and they always looked sharper and more precise than their Cheshire rivals in and around the box.
But Macc managed to stay in the game and could have been level before Walker struck Crewe’s second. Corey O’Keefe blazed wildly over when the ball landed at his feet 10 yards out.
And while the second-half was dominated by Crewe – with Walker close to grabbing a second with a curling effort which came back off a post – the Silkmen could have reduced the arrears, but Horsfall twice directed free headers from set plays wide of goal.
Danny Whitehead’s daisycutter almost caught out Will Jaaskelainen with the Crewe keeper scrambling the ball around.
Then Jaaskelainen kept out a flick from sub Joe Ironside, although by then Crewe had wrapped up their seventh home win in a row, a sequence of success they last achieved back in 1992.
Artell added: “It was a thoroughly professional performance and we deserved the 2-0 lead at the break, my only criticism was that it should have been more.
“The fans were terrific and made a lot of noise. It’s important we have such support.”
The defeat left Macclesfield without a win in their last seven games, but manager Mark Kennedy says his remit is only to keep the club in the League and he insists there has been progress in his 10 games in charge.
“We were five points clear of the bottom team when I took over and with the run of games we’ve had we should be bottom, but we’re eight points clear,” pointed out Kennedy.
“I’m pleased as we’ve played top seven teams and the players deserve credit. All that matters is staying up.
“I expected an incredibly tough game, but we handed that to them on a plate. All goals are bad goals, but they came from catastrophic errors that were mind-boggling.”