City have not lost an opening day fixture since 1994, I hope I'm not tempting fate with that statistic. City were beaten 4 - 1 at Stockport. Since then there have been 5 draws and 4 victories.
City won at Gresty Rd last season, a Gary Croft shot hit the post and went in off the keeper. The season before the clubs were in Division 2 (as was) and that game finished 1 - 1.
Lennie's preferred line up would appear to be
Margetson, Weston, Page, Gabbidon, Vidmar, Langley, Boland, Kavanagh, Robinson, Thorne and Earnshaw.
Injuries may affect that with Gabbidon trying to recover from a jarred heel and Willie Boland and Peter Thorne missing the Lazio game last Monday.
James Collins, Lee Bullock and Alan Lee are all fit and ready if needed.
Crewe have brought Mark Rivers back to the club and they have signed keeper Ben Williams (the poor chap who was in goal when City won last season). He had a great game bar his misfortune when the ball bounced off him into the goal. They have today completed the loan signing of defender Leith Briggs from Norwich. He is expected to go straight into the Crewe line up.
City have sold their allocation of over 1500 tickets.
City have three games inside 7 days with home matches against Coventry and Plymouth following next Tuesday and Friday respectively.
Good luck to Lennie and the squad in what will hopefully be a successful season.