Davis looking for positive reaction following Oldham defeat

Steve Davis is after a vast improvement against Hartlepool United this weekend after his Crewe Alexandra side suffered back-to-back league defeats for the first time since he took over. Davis was left disappointed and frustrated by his side’s performance and 2-0 resultant 2-0 defeat by Oldham on Tuesday night and wants his players to stand up and be counted against Neale Cooper’s side this weekend.

Davis told crewealex.net: “We need to improve because Tuesday night was not good enough. We need to be better than that and our state of mind has to be better. We have had a chat about it at training and we have got to bounce back positively.

“I didn’t think we approached the game well enough mentally on Tuesday. Maybe some of them looked at the table and thought Oldham were struggling and it would be an easier game for us because of that, but they quickly learned that isn’t going to be the case.

   He added: “We carried too many players on Tuesday and we cannot afford to carry any at this level. Only the goalkeeper, the two centre-halves and Murph were anywhere near their standard. We ended up carrying seven others and we cannot do that. To get anything, we need all our players playing at their top level because in this league there are no easy games.”