Match preview: Crewe Alexandra v Latics

Latics fans have been rummaging through the history books and stats sites to find the last time their side won five games in a row. There are disputes because of cup competitions (do they count?) and winning streaks that run across seasons (they absolutely do not count and there aren’t that many anyway). These complications defy so-called artificial intelligence, which is a new and 100% inaccurate name for data scraping with a decent user interface.

Micky Mellon doesn’t care when the last time was, and nor do any of his players. The question they’re considering is this: how do we win the next game? For the last five games, they’ve come up with four brilliant answers and one that was plenty good enough (Harrogate Town).

The fixture at Gresty Road tomorrow is the biggest game of the season, and comes six days before an even bigger fixture away to Colchester United on Good Friday. If things go to plan, the fixtures get bigger and bigger and bigger all the way through to Accrington Stanley at Boundary Park on Saturday 2 May.

There are two things to worry about: Crewe battered Latics in the match at Boundary Park in November but came away with only a point after a fantastic Latics rearguard action; and Crewe are as desperate as Latics for the win. (A draw isn’t particularly useful to either side).

Having said that, Latics went into Tuesday’s fixture against Notts County in the same position. County rinsed Latics in the reverse fixture in November, and were desperate for the points on Tuesday for their own promotion challenge. Latics won the first 70 minutes 3-0 and were happy to play out the remaining time without conceding. The pure, brutal efficiency of the side on Tuesday night will live long in the memory, but it also serves as a very loud warning to the other play-off hopefuls. Latics’ timing this season has so far been immaculate.

FOR THE RECORDS

Les Pogliacomi and Connor Ripley kept 18 clean sheets in a season, as has Matt Hudson. Hudson is likely to keep more clean sheets this season, so will be known as the keeper who’s kept the most clean sheets in a season. Right?

Not necessarily. There are provisos and, in the fullness of time, asterisks may well be required to do some heavy lifting. Pogliacomi and Ripley got their shut-outs in League One, Hudson in League Two. Ripley played in a relegation-avoidance side, whereas Pogliacomi and Hudson are in promotion-chasing ones.

For my money, Ripley is the most important of the three keepers, and Latics’ best keeper this century. That isn’t a technical judgment or one based on stats. It’s more a mark of the esteem in which he was and is still held: he saved Latics from relegation. He saved two penalties within a few minutes of one another against Millwall to keep one of his clean sheets, gaining Latics a valuable point.

At the end of the final game of the season, Ripley and the rest of the players went on a barely deserved clap-the-remaining-fans tour of the ground. A lap not of honour, but of the players’ appreciation for the forbearance of the fans. Pitch invasions were customary and tolerated at the time, but only for school-age fans.

As the players slinked around Boundary Park, a biblical scene emerged: the pitch invaders surrounded Ripley and Ripley alone. They manoeuvred to touch his shirt, to get a hand on the miracle garment. Had they been strong enough, they might have carried him to the dressing room. They followed him all the way to the steps, forming a tail around Ripley as if he were a comet.

Pogliacomi was and remains popular, Hudson is building a reputation as the best in the division, ahead of Ripley, now of Swindon Town. But Ripley is the one with the Ready Brek glow, the one they followed around the pitch like medieval people might have followed a holy man with magical healing powers.