Crookes United 2–2 Wigston FC: a late collapse

Crookes United spent most of Tuesday 18 August in a position they have not inhabited often this season: ahead, comfortable, a man to the good. They left it with a point and the distinctive sensation of having been mugged twice in four minutes. 2–2 with Wigston FC, whose ten men took something that looked impossible for 87 of them.

Dewhurst's 12th-minute finish, laid on by DeAngelis, gave the division's 20th-placed side an early lead, a rare luxury for a club drawing everything in sight. Then Alkan saw a straight red at 29', and Crookes had 61 minutes against ten men, a mathematical advantage you would trust a side with 21 points to handle. You would be wrong, but you would not be alone.

Akkuş made it 2–0 at 66', DeAngelis again the provider, and Crookes concluded, reasonably, that the work was done. They stopped pressing. A polite way of saying they stopped playing, and Wigston, dreadful form notwithstanding, found the spaces that open up when a game is considered settled. The model I like to keep in my head says Crookes' xG stayed respectable to the end; the model does not have to live in Matchday 24's table.

Burchill's 88th-minute strike was the warning. Caltabiano's equaliser two minutes later was the consequence. Burchill assisted both, which is the sort of thing that happens when a two-goal cushion encounters a team that has stopped running. The earlier meeting finished 3–0 to Wigston, so this counted as progress, of a sort, for roughly an hour.

Tomorrow brings Matchday 25 and little time to reset. The question for Crookes is whether the collapse is a lesson or a habit. Their recent form suggests they already know the answer, and it is the one they will act on. That is the thing about drawing everything in sight: you get very good at it.