Can Crewe Alex finish in the top 7?

Phew. With a weather postponement meaning their game at Barnet didn't go ahead on Sunday, the festive fixture schedule is now officially over for Crewe Alex and they can start to take stock of where they sit in the L2 table and what they can hope to achieve in the final 22 games of the 25-26 season. Well, the biggest question on everyone's mind's connected with the club is, can they make the play-offs? We could shoot higher and ask about the top 3, but that seems wildly optimistic, as even the most upbeat Alex fan would admit. So, the play-offs then. Can the Alex return there for the 2nd time in 3 seasons? Here are the arguments both for and against it.

Yes

They have enough talent to rival most sides in the division. At the time of posting, they have Emre Tezgel with 8 goals to his name. Tommi O'Reilly has the joint most assists in the division. Jack Lankester is one of the most dangerous all round attackers in the league when fit. Max Sanders is having his best ever season. Mickey Demetriou is a rock at the back. Josh March has 10 goal contributions already, 2 off his career EFL best.

Reece Hutchinson has been a steady presence at full back. The homegrown quartet of Matus Holicek, Lewis Billington, Calum Agius and Owen Lunt are at worst steady L2 performers. Wily veterans in Conor Thomas and Omar Bogle balance out the youth with plenty of experience. With a few January additions to improve their weaker areas, they could absolutely take off in the final few months of the season.

They are playing much better football than last season. Disagree all you want, but they are scoring goals, with them already up to 38 after 24 games, 5 more than at the same stage last season. Last season they lost key players upfront and their goal output dipped, with them scoring just 16 goals in their final 22 games. I don't see that being an issue this season given their more positive style of play and better attacking depth.

They have shown they can hang with the best sides in the division. They are 2-2-5 against the 9 sides currently above them, but 3 of those losses were by 1 goal margins. Of the 9 sides above them, they have played 5 on the road already and of the top 7, they've visited 4 of them. Between now and Easter Sunday, their schedule doesn't look all that daunting, as they only face 5 sides above them in the next 17.

And speaking of their rivals, nobody in the division looks capable of running away with the title or even the top 3, let alone the top 7. Pick out the opponent I've been most impressed with and I'd struggle to name more than 2-3. There are no juggernauts, with the even the financial heavy hitters in MK, Chesterfield and Salford not even in the top 3 currently. Pre-season favourites in Grimsby, Gillingham and Bristol Rovers have underperformed to varying degrees and that has opened up the top of the table for surprise packages like Bromley. Is there any reason why, with a fair wind, the Alex can't also gatecrash the promotion race like they did 2 years ago?

We all focus on the fact that they fell away in the final 10 or so games in 23-24 and then in the final 20 or so games last season, but perhaps that was the pressure of being in the top 7 and holding on to a spot. Perhaps with them now being the chasers rather than the chased, we might see a reversal of their poor 2nd half of the season form.

No

The fact is, they have only once shown the kind of consistency needed to make the top 7 and that was in August. Their longest winning run since then has been 2 games. Their longest unbeaten run so far has been 4. They've gone through 2 stretches of games where they lost 4 out of 5 and then they won 1 in 8 between November and December. The top 7 has been slipping further and further away each month. At the end of October, they were outside the top 7 by 1 point. A month later it was 2 points. At the end of December, it was 6 points.

Maybe it's moving the goalposts, but take out the opening 4 games and the Alex are 18th in the L2 form table. They don't rank in the top 7 for any major statistical category. They are 11th in the home and 14th in the away results table, showing that their form both at home and away requires improvement.

The maths is also working against them. The team currently projected to finish 7th is expected to finish with somewhere in the region of 75 points. The Alex currently only expect to finish on 67. Even if they win both of their next 2 home games against 2 strugglers in Harrogate and Barrow, they still only project to finish on 73, still short of their target. In order to reach 75 points, they would need 40 points from their final 22 games, which when you realise they only managed 35 from their first 24 looks a tall order. To pick up 40 points, they would need something like 11 wins minimum and to go 10-10-14/11-7-7/12-4-8 the rest of the way. That's a win every other game, which leaves very little margin for error.

They have struggled recently with an injury crisis and whilst that appears to be clearing up, what's to say it doesn't occur again. Like most L2 clubs, they are heavily reliant on a core of players and lose a couple of those players and things fall apart, as we saw when they lost their captain Mickey Demetriou for 7 games.

Their depth isn't up to par either. Whilst they have a solid group of roughly 12 players in their 31 man squad, the rest of the team are suspect at best. They are either first year pros(Dancey, Armstrong, Moore, Hodkin), development players(Croker, Roberts, Thibaut) or players who to date have struggled to show the consistency needed to thrive in L2(Booth, Waller, Mingi, Connolly, Finney, Powell, Moult, Rankine). That's half your squad that is of limited value. It's too much for a L2 team to carry and it'll be injuries coupled with these players playing lots of minutes which cause them to fall short.

They can hope to move some of those players on and in the transfer window, we might see several of them do so. But it also raises 2 questions. 1, can we trust the club to find upgrades when they were responsible for these players coming in in the first place. And 2, can a L2 team with a small budget realistically hope to have 15-20 players all capable of being decent performers at this level? I'd suggest not.

And whilst I talked up the possibility of them being the chasers, which might see them do better in the 2nd half of this season compared to 12 months ago, there are no guarantees. Fatigue, injuries and the possibility that the top 7 drifts further and further away might see the form dip to similar levels once again, should they be say 5-10 points adrift come early March for example.

Conclusion

So, in answer to the original question, can they make the play-offs? Based on all available evidence, I'm going to have to say no. I still retain some optimism that they can click into form now that their bogey month of December is over and done with. I'm hopeful they can find the right upgrades in the transfer market and can stay injury free. But that's all it is at the moment. Hope. It's not based on anything specific or tangible.

This is why, come the 3rd May, when the season is completed, I think the Alex will be packing their bags and heading off on holiday. Not preparing for a play-off run. Let's hope this comes back to bite me in 4 months time.