5 Questions for Crewe Alex as 2026-27 friendlies approach

I hope you all enjoy your final Saturday without Crewe Alex football for 10 months. Next Saturday, their pre-season begins with a trip to Witton Albion. The next 3 Saturday's after that are home games with Stoke and Birmingham, then a trip to Chester. Then of course, it's the league cup and then the league. So yeah, scrambling around to find weekend activities can officially end.

With a week of pre-season training done at the Alex, their first friendly a week away and their first competitive game a month away, I thought I'd look at the burning questions I have for them at this point in their preparations for the new season:

When will the contract renewals get resolved?

We're a week into pre-season and as yet, the quartet of Lewis Billingham, Luca Moore, Stan Dancey and Fin Roberts have yet to sign their contract offers. Whilst I'm very much unbothered by if/when Roberts signs, the other 3 are more concerning, Billington especially. Given his importance to the squad after his displays last season, knowing which way his future lies needs to be resolved fairly quickly.

Moore and Dancey are also important. Not as much as Billington, but they still have the potential to be potential emergency starters and useful bench depth at the very worst. When are these contracts going to be get resolved? Because they are proving to be an unnecessary distraction at this point.

Where are certain players playing?

Maybe other clubs have members of their squad that are like this, but I feel like the Alex have an unusually high number of players that we can't really nail down a primary position for. Is Billington, should he even stay, playing at CB or RB? The debate continues. What about Dancey? He's played at CB in his youth career, but his senior appearances to date have been at RB.

Luke Offord. Where does he play? The friendlies should give us an insight into that, but whilst he can move between CB and CM, I'd almost prefer them to find him one position and keep him there, rather than him going to CB one week and CM the next.

Jack Lankester, Joel Tabiner and Matus Holicek. On the wing? If so, which one, right or left? Or are they better played centrally? You can make a case for them in any of the front 3 behind the striker. You can maybe chuck Gibson and Agius into that discussion, although I'd argue they are more clearly left wingers.

The Alex have a lot of unknowns about who will play where come the opening day of the season.

Which starting spots are up for grabs?

Leading on from that, it's fair to say a number of positions in the squad probably already have players pencilled in to them for the league cup game with Accrington. Assuming there are no injuries and assuming they play a system very similar to the 4-2-3-1 they operated for most of last season, you can safely say Lawlor(GK), Demetriou(LCB), Hutchinson(LB), Thomas(CM), Lunt(CM) and March(ST) are starting.

But then it gets interesting. Is Offord going to start in defence alongside Demetriou? Or do they view him more as a midfielder, in which case, does he bump Thomas or Lunt out of the line up? Who starts at RB, given they currently don't have any under contract?

Then in the 3 attacking positions behind March, they have 5 viable starting options in Tabiner, Lankester, Holicek, Agius and Gibson. Again assuming all 5 are fit come the Accrington game, which 3 get the nod and which 2 will have to be content with a spot on the bench?

Can they avoid injuries?

I might be wrong, but I think I'm right in saying the Alex currently have no players on the treatment table. That would be the first time in a long while that this has been the case going into the friendlies. 12 months ago for example, they had Lankester, Tracey and Bogle sidelined with various issues. Having no medium to long term issues would be huge for them given their current recruitment struggles and their need to have every player available.

Another question is whether they can avoid any pre-season injuries. 2 years ago, Omar Bogle broke his back against Mallorca and he never truly recovered from it. 12 months ago, Joel Tabiner went down with an ACL which cost him the full season. They have got to hope and pray they avoid any similar pitfalls this time around. Perhaps that is partly why they have only arranged 6 friendlies. But the big question around injuries will once again dominate any conversation about the team and how far they can go in 26-27.

Can they replace Tezgel and O'Reilly?

The Alex weren't decimated for talent this summer. Most of their departures were replaceable players. But 2 of their losses were big ones in the departures of Emre Tezgel and Tommi O'Reilly at the end of their loans. In the league they managed 17 goals and 13 assists between them, which is a lot of productivity to lose. The question then of course becomes how they replace them.

At the risk of answering this question straight away, I'd argue that they are looking to replace both players in the aggregate. Last season they got 9 goals and 5 assists from Agius, Gibson, Lankester, Tabiner and Holicek. I know it sounds silly to word it like that given Gibson wasn't even on the team and Tabiner missed the season, but the point is, those 5 players are here now and in theory, are fit and ready to go.

I really hope that between the 5 of them, they can go from 9 goals to 17 and from 5 assists to 13 and then keep going. I would argue that to give yourself a realistic shot of making the play-offs, you need to score roughly 70 goals. The Alex last season managed 64. If those 5 players hit 5 goals, which is more than do-able for each of them, then that would be 35% of the total needed. Add in roughly 10 for Josh March and that would take to 50% of their total.