Fleetwood Town’s Under-21s battled throughout their 10-goal thriller against Crewe Alexandra on Tuesday afternoon but ended up losing out as the game ended 6-4 to the visitors at Poolfoot Farm.
In what was an end-to-end game, both sides were full attack from the off and even though the Railwaymen took the lead seven minutes in, that was quickly cancelled out by Kyle White who found the back of the net less than a minute later.
The midfielder latched onto the end of Theo Williams’ cross to head home from close range, and it didn’t take long for the assistor to turn into the next goal scorer.
Cian Hayes found him with a replica of his cross 10 minutes earlier, with the forward poking the ball into the net to make it 2-1 around the quarter-hour mark.
It was certainly a goal-frenzy after this as seven goals would be scored in the second half of this clash, with the first coming two minutes after the restart when Crewe drew the game level before Josh Edwards netted his second of the season to restore the lead.
Another equaliser came at the hour mark for Crewe, and they seemed to run riot after this, scoring three goals in six minutes to make the score line 5-3 with 20 minutes still to go.
Forward changes were made by Matt Lawlor as he brought the likes of Maleace Asamoah and Sam Fishburn off the bench, in place of Phoenix Patterson and Cian Hayes, with the first of those substitutes finding himself right in the middle of the action straight away.
Asamoah managed to pick out the head of Williams to halve the deficit, making it 5-4 on the day, but a quick reaction from the visitors cancelled this out, meaning the game was out of reach come the final whistle.
With form needing to turn around soon for the Development Squad, they are now setting their focus on the Burnley clash on Saturday 30 September (11am kick-off) at Barnfield.
Town XI: Donaghy (GK), Johnson (C), Edwards, Wilson, Teale, Patterson (Asamoah 69'), Namputu (Morrison 46'), White (Brown 63'), Hayes (Fishburn 69'), Williams, Hughes.
Subs not used: Cragg (GK).