Boss out to 'hurt' his players with intense training

Crewe Alexandra manager Steve Davis says his players will go through a mini pre-season over the next 10 days. Due to the FA Cup second round taking place this week, the Alex do not have a fixture this weekend, so Davis will use that time to work with his players and implement the new loan captures Tom Hitchcock and Mesca Bangna into his thinking. Both started in the 1-0 win over Crawley on Saturday.

December.^thThe mini-break from games will also allow him to bring back Ryan Colclough and Mathias Pogba into his training programme ahead of our next fixture against Coventry City on 14

Steve told crewealex.net: “Every player experiences ups and downs in their career. We have had a testing time so it is important that we remain strong as a unit and fight. We have got a great result against Crawley under difficult circumstances and now we have keep going.

“We had a two week break, so it was important we signed off with a result and a decent performance. We have managed to do that, but we have a lot of work to do.

He added: “We will use the mini-break to really work the players. It will be like a mini pre-season and it will be our aim to hurt the players and work them hard. We will be out on the training ground trying to improve them.”