Play-Off Takeaways #2

Crawley and Crewe stun MK Dons and Doncaster while Bolton and Oxford book Wembley trips and four Championship sides play the waiting game.

The scheduling of this year’s play-offs means the EFL family are all eating at different times. The opening ties in the Championship have been served, while in Leagues One and Two, the whole hog — legs and all — has been greedily hoovered up.

In the first edition of Takeaways, rain stopped play, meaning MK Dons were unable to turn up at Crawley. What changed? How best to interpret the spinning of the Bolton weathervane? Could Crewe refuel for a gruelling second leg? Would Oxford place a comma or a full stop on the sentence of their season? What can we divine from a 0-0 double in the Championship’s first legs?

We’ve watched the lot, digesting the big questions and spotting the small themes that could define the final flourish of the greatest meal in football.

Welcome to Play-Off Takeaways #2.

---

Relentless Crawley break records, predictions and MK

Huw Davies

‘Better never stops’, screamed a Castore pitchside ad at Stadium MK on Saturday, in that way in which sports advertising has commandeered all words as nouns (‘better never stops’, ‘find the yes’, ‘be your you’). It was correct about MK Dons’ visitors that night. Crawley emphatically answered the rhetorical question: why sit off, when you can effectively take a 4-0 lead within three minutes?

They pressed from the start, and MK weren’t ready. Jack Tucker’s ill-advised pass out from the back and Alex Gilbey’s weak control allowed Jay Williams to brilliantly intercept, before shooting softly past a somnambulist Filip Marschall. The 21-year-old goalkeeper had been brought in following Michael Kelly’s poor first-leg display but looked lost throughout. 

And because MK’s pre-match preparations for overturning a 3-0 deficit presumably didn’t account for going even further behind (how could it?), they lost their heads. Crawley almost scored again, Max Dean got away with an unseen stamp on Williams, Stephen Wearne made a dangerous challenge of his own, and another pressing-induced defensive error let Crawley extend their lead. Cue the boos.

But while MK were abject, turning any Crawley half-chance into a big chance, it all came from their opponents. Scott Lindsey’s men were magnificent across the pitch. Goalkeeper Corey Addai played at right-back for much of the first leg (this is not an exaggeration). He may as well have been on the right wing for large parts of this one. Crawley controlled proceedings throughout, and when he was called into action, he made more than one spectacular save, including from Dean’s penalty. Dean himself had a hell of a game: he stamped on a player, scored in the resulting time added on, was denied a penalty claim, denied a penalty goal, and finally got booked for going all WWE at the end.

This was all about Crawley, though, and their refusal to let MK up off the canvas. When Dean scored in first-half stoppage time, only a goal-line clearance prevented Town from immediately rectifying things. Nonplussed, they scored straight after the break instead. It was the best goal of the lot – sparkling interplay between Klaidi Lolos, probable Man of the Match Liam Kelly and hat-trick hero Danilo Orsi. The message was loud and clear. Don’t. Let. Up.

That made it 3-1 on the night and 6-1 on aggregate, but still Crawley wouldn’t lift their boot from MK’s throat. Scoring again made them the first team in 31 years to win a Football League play-off tie by a six-goal margin, then they became the first team ever to win one by seven. Seven clear goals. In favour of the team who finished 7th. 

Lindsey was asked afterwards when he was able to relax in a game Crawley dominated from start to finish. He said not until the final whistle. Imagine what he’s going to be like at Wembley, then, because with the pragmatic way in which Crewe went about their excellent semi-final comeback, it’s going to be quite the tactical clash in the final.

---

Crewe smash the pressure gauge

Sam Parry

A few days ago I wrote that Lee Bell would need the services of the AA to pick his side up off the curb in a hot take that cooled quicker than the contents of a baffled Deliveroo driver’s satchel. Mea culpa. Crewe are going to Wembley.

They were down and out. It wasn’t simply that the 2-0 deficit was an obstacle ahead of the away leg but that Crewe’s performance in the first leg was symptomatic of a recent and steep decline – Alex had won just one of their final nine league games. Just as damning and even more relevant, they hadn’t scored more than a single goal since 2nd March 2024, all of 10 weeks and 13 matches ago.

First as shocking, then as shock, Lee Bell filled an empty tank with guts, graft and gas. Given everything that came before, to turn around the tie within 16 minutes was astonishing. To fly out of the traps and execute a smash-and-grab game plan was incredible; to shed their skin of that losing mentality, even more so.

We can cap-doff Mickey Demetriou’s goal-capped captain’s performance. We can talk about the speed, snap and precision passing of Aaron Rowe or the energy of Rio Adebisi. We can interrogate the change from a 3-5-2 to a 4-2-3-1 and how, with a pair of full-backs and wingers, Crewe did better work stopping Donny’s danger men. However, just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

In football, especially play-off football, we get to spectate upon the most fraught match experiences that most professionals will ever play in. What is less clear and obvious in the grind of Saturday-Tuesday becomes transparent within the hothouse of the knock-out: crystallised pressure. And Crewe responded.

In the second half, they stood resolute. Never a backward glance after riding their luck. Never complacent. Never lacking in desire. Donny pushed and Crewe pushed back. Of course, by the time the 90 minutes ended, the energy of both sides dropped with equal and opposite force to the rising pressure. What followed in extra time was slow, cagey and stressful. And when penalties came, there was a millisecond of sweet release before the stakes were reduced to the kicking of a football and the diving of two goalkeepers.

For Crewe, it meant relying on a goalkeeper on an emergency loan from Wycombe, in Max Stryjek. A 6ft 2in metaphor for Crewe’s mentality, he defied the odds and defined the tie, saving Rovers’ final spot-kick to carry Alex to Wembley.

For Donny, there’s little solace. I can only come at it like a minor character in a mid-noughties Seth Rogen stoner comedy, with a long, post-bong exhale:

Play-offs, man…

To the penalty victors go the Wembley spoils. It remains to be seen whether Crewe have enough in the tank. After refuelling for the gruelling Rovers task, they have proven themselves capable of executing a game plan and maintaining a mammoth mentality when under the cosh. The wheels are back on – test the tyres and the pressure gauge bursts.