Boss trying to keep things as fresh as he can with demanding fixture list

Crewe Alexandra boss Steve Davis admits that he has had ‘to juggle his players around’ as the club are having to fulfil first-team, Under-21, youth team and reserve fixtures in February and March. The Alex boss has had to content with 12 fixtures in this month alone and with five injuries to Matt Tootle, Ryan Colclough, Chris Atkinson, Jon Guthrie and Fraser Murdoch, his squad numbers have continued to be stretched.

The Alex boss was understandably unhappy that his substitutes on Tuesday night at Doncaster Rovers had most played the majority of the Under-21 game at Birmingham the previous day.

The Alex boss told crewealex.net: “We have had and will have a lot of games coming up. I think it was 12 games we counted for this month alone, if you include the Youth Cup.

“It was unhelpful for us to have the Under-21 game on the Monday with the first team game on the Tuesday. That makes things difficult and it is not ideal to have your substitutes made up of players who have played 90 minutes the day before.

“It is a lot to ask of someone like young Georg Cooper to come on and make an impression as a substitute after he had played the day before, but we have to fulfil the fixtures and the few injuries doesn’t help us at times like this.

The Crewe boss added: “It has been something of a juggling act to we will keep tinkering with the teams and moving one or two around to make sure that they protect them a bit.”