Steve after positive reaction after Rochdale display

Steve Davis admits that Tuesday night’s defeat to Rochdale has made this weekend’s visit of Scunthorpe United more important. The Crewe boss was left hugely frustrated following the 4-0 defeat at Spotland and says that the result and performance was ‘puzzling’ after such a competitive performance against Swindon a few days before.

The Alex boss told the club’s official web-site: “After the result against on Tuesday night, the game against Scunthorpe has become slightly bigger because it is another game against one of our rivals.

“The result on Tuesday night put us closer to the bottom four and it is out job again to try an extend that. There are going to be times when we will find ourselves pulled back and others where a result will accelerate us.

“We need to try and drag a few more teams into it. I think any team from half way down can be dragged back into it.

“There are a lot of teams in a similar position to us. We are capable of going on a mini-run of two or three games but we can’t go on those long unbeaten runs. Outside of the top four teams, who could go 8-10 games unbeaten, all the rest are looking for that level of consistency.

“The top teams are capable of going game after game and we haven’t been able to do that. We have been able to put decent enough runs together to get out of it but we still have those Tuesday night performances against Rochdale or a Saturday performance against the MK Dons. We are not quite there yet and a lot of teams in this division of capable of going on a losing run, as well as a winning one.

“What we have managed to do is to keep our destiny in our own hands. It is important that we keep in control of that from now until the end of the season to make sure that we are not brought back into it.”