James Collins says players have shown great spirit and character
First team coach James Collins says that the character and spirit in the Crewe Alexandra camp is still high. That was best reflected by our really spirited performance against Championship club Bolton Wanderers last night. Crewe were comfortably the better side in the opening half an hour of the game and arguably deserved the more than the one goal, Brad Inman had given us after just two minutes.
The Railwaymen showed great character to fight back deep into stoppage time when it looked as though Jermaine Beckford had won a thrilling cup-tie with a volley in the 92nd minute. Marcus Haber headed Crewe level six minutes later to take it through to extra-time where we were eventually beaten by Beckford’s second goal on 117 minutes.
Collins said: “This team is still young and in truth some of our performances have been encouraging from them. Not the results, but generally the performances have been decent.
“The defeat to Rochdale did come out of the blue and we were not expecting that after some good performances. It left some of them shell-shocked but because they are young, they got moved on and bounced back quickly.
“I’ve known some of these players for over ten years and I know they have the character to learn and develop. There is no evidence that our confidence has been knocked and the way they played last night showed that.
He added: “Our job as coaches is to keep improving them.”