Marked for Jack Lankester
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match24 Oct 2026
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Tommi O'Reilly decided nobody was going anywhere. Walsall had no time left to answer.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Franco Umeh, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.98
A mark of 7.98 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Crewe Alexandra may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad26 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crewe Alexandra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match24 Oct 2026
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match24 Oct 2026
A 2‑1 win over Walsall, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces26 Oct 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Crewe Alexandra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reece Hutchinson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad26 Oct 2026
11 new faces, and Crewe Alexandra are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match16 Sep 2026
Reading ended it 1‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Matúš Holíček at 21 — 7.94
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Matúš Holíček did not need any: 7.94, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Tommi O'Reilly was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Crewe Alexandra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Connor Ogilvie is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad21 Sep 2026
No hiding place for Owen Lunt
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Owen Lunt, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Crewe Alexandra
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
A move Callum Maycock would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Callum Maycock is living that version at Crewe Alexandra, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crewe Alexandra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Crewe Alexandra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kieran Green is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad31 Aug 2026
49 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Max Sanders and Crewe Alexandra agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tommi O'Reilly was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Reece Hutchinson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.