Boss pleased with striking options going into the busy Christmas period

Steve Davis is confident that his new loan captures Uche Ikpeazu from Watford and Nicky Ajose from Leeds United will provide the creativity and goals his side needs to start collecting more points.

The Alex boss acted quickly to replace Danny Haynes and Febian Brandy with his two new loan signings and he firmly believes that the decision will give us the best of chance of winning more games.

Steve told crewealex.net: “As a manager you are always striving to find the right system and the right players to give you the best chance of winning.

“We have tried various ways of playing and have been flexible with our formations for different opponents and have changed things in games to try and get a result. I think we have had some success with having three at the back.

“We were shipping too many goals at the start of the season and that has helped us, but we have not been scoring enough goals of late.

“We have been involved in tight games and kept some clean-sheets but I needed to find a bit more up front to give us a chance.

He added: “Hopefully, getting the two new forwards in will give us a better chance and take some of the pressure off the back lads.”