And satisfaction for boss and his coaching staff
Steve Davis says he and his staff have already started dissecting the past season after Crewe Alexandra escaped relegation to League Two on the final of the day. Crewe produced one of their most encouraging runs of the entire season to lose just one of their final six matches and avoid relegation with a superb 2-1 win over Preston North End.
Davis spoke of his relief in masterminded a great escape, but is only looking to the future and how we can improve moving forward. The boss is looking for a drastic improvement in relation to our start to the season.
Steve told the club’s official web-site: “It was a sense of relief and great satisfaction in what we had achieved as a club. In many ways it was a better feeling than winning at Wembley. I think it was a greater achievement with everything we had to deal with.
“It was a struggle and there are reasons behind that that have been well documented, but the players showed great character to turn it around. We had 21 points from our first 23 games and managed to get 30 in the second half of the season.
“We are notorious for finishing strongly but I don’t want us to have to play catch-up. We will look at that. I want us to make a good start and have a real platform to go into the second half of the season with.
“That is why we are going to do something different in the pre-season. We haven’t started the season well for a number of years and we have looked at that as a trend. That is why the players will have a longer break and will come in two weeks earlier this time.
“We will ease them into pre-season instead of them having to do 6 out 12 sessions. Previously they could have two weeks off when the season finished and then they could have another two weeks off for another holiday. They could come in for a week and then miss a week and we would prefer them to have successive, sustained work because you can quickly lose that fitness work.
“We are giving them a longer rest period and just trying something different.”