Boss on why he kept faith with his starting XI at Stadium:mk

Steve Davis says he stuck with his players for the trip to the MK Dons to prevent chopping and changing for the sake of it. In the wake of 3-2 defeat to Bury in the Capital One Cup the Crewe Alexandra boss showed faith in his starting XI again, selecting the same team that had started at Bury. The only player to come into the side since the opening day of the season has been the on-loan Chuks Aneke.

The Arsenal youngster has come in for the injured Byron Moore.

Steve and his coaching staff did discuss making a couple of changes for the trip to Stadium:mk but in the end the manager elected not to.

Steve Davis told the club’s official web-site: “I decided to stay with the players. If you chop and change all the time then it can disrupt the fluency of the team. We could have made a couple of changes and we talked about it but sometimes you have to stick with the players.

“You have to trust them and give them a decent opportunity to show they can succeed. That is the only way you can find out. I didn’t think two games and one bad result was enough.

The boss added: “Now there may come a time when I look at it and think that one or two deserve a chance or they will make us better for a certain game. It may that we can the personnel or the system but I was encouraged with the way we played second half on Saturday.”