Davis wants to avoid slugglish start at the Bescot Stadium

Steve Davis has told the club’s official web-site that he and his coaching staff have assessed the slow start made at Portsmouth last weekend, but that they won’t dwell too much on the opening 20 minutes at Fratton Park. Davis was left hugely disappointed by his players’ inability to cope with the tempo set by Pompey and Crewe found themselves 2-0 down inside the only 20 minutes of what was always going to be a difficult away fixture regardless.

Ahead of another away day at Walsall this weekend, Davis told crewealex.net: “You tend to learn from your defeats more than you do from victories. It is important to analyse all matches when you win and lose.

“It is important to see what the reasons were for us not starting well enough at Portsmouth. We have done that a couple of times this season, away at Brentford and at home to Oldham where the players were caught out by the tempo a bit.

“We couldn’t cope with that and struggled to get a foot hold in the game and the players have to be prepared for that sort of onslaught. We have to be in a better frame of mind to handle that and that is something we have spoken about because you cannot afford to concede two early goals away from home and expect to get much from the games.

“We have to be solid defensively and make it difficult for the other team to score against us. At 0-0 you get a point and are always in the game. We have had trouble scoring goals in certain games this season, so we need to keep things tight and get those clean-sheets.”