Our pre-season got off to a winning start as we beat League Two side Crewe Alexandra 3-1 in our first friendly match of our trip to Birmingham thanks to goals from Toni Lato, Marc Domènech and Vedat Muriqi.
The starting XI of the Jagoba Arrasate era included Dominik Greif in goal while Mateu Jaume made his debut.
Chances were few and far between in the opening stages despite our control of possession.
We had our first sight of goal in the 11th minute when Sergi Darder combined with Antonio Sánchez and Abdón before the latter managed to get a strike away which was blocked.
Antonio Sánchez was to continue to trouble the English side’s defence as following a good run in behind, our winger struck the side netting.
Greif was busy towards the end of the first half, making a series of saves to deny Crewe before Cesc Riba, Domènech and Samuel Guzmán were handed their debuts around the half-hour mark as Arrasate looked to give minutes to his squad.
Despite the rotations and half chances, we headed into the break with the scoreline level.
Further changes were made after the restart as Leo Román, Gio González, Martin Valjent, Omar Mascarell, Toni Lato, Samu Costa, Dani Rodríguez and Takuma Asano were introduced.
A good start to the second half yielded its reward when debutant Asano combined with Lato to give our full back space to find the bottom corner and give us the advantage.
Domènech doubled our lead minutes later when our young striker capitalised on a defensive error to cap what was a memorable debut.
Crewe’s attacks were limited after the goal as we dominated possession for the remainder of the fixture, although they managed to pull a goal back through Luca with 12 minutes left on the clock.
Muriqi would add our third and final goal in the closing stages as out striker made the most of a defensive mix-up to find the back of the net.
