Steve Davis is pleased with the way the summer preparations have gone both on and off the pitch.

Crewe Alexandra manager Steve Davis has revealed to the club’s official web-site that he selected his starting XI for the opening game of the season after Monday’s training session.

The Alex boss says that preparations for the hugely anticipated first game of the season against Port Vale has gone as well as possible and he hopes that the reward for that hard work will see us enjoy a much better start to the season.

Ahead of the visit of Port Vale this weekend, the Crewe boss told crewealex.net: “I picked my team on Monday after we signed Ben (Nugent). From Monday we have been working with the specific units and team shape and they all know what is expected of them.

“They are all looking forward to it and the preparation has gone well. I thought last summer went okay but we have been better all-round this time. Hopefully that hard work and effort will pay off with some good results over the first few weeks of the season.

“The players and staff have put a lot of effort into the preparations and all I would ask of the supporters is for them to come out in force and support the lads. We need them to stick with us and encourage the players because we are still a relatively young group. We also have a few new players who could making their debuts as well.

th,“The fans can play their part in helping us making a better start to the season and hopefully us having a better campaign. We have found League One challenging over the last few years and the best we have managed is 13
so we will all have to work hard to get up to that sort of level again, but everything we do is to working towards improvement and making us better."