Steve Davis frustrated he has to change his attack again after losing Haber to late call-up.

Crewe Alexandra boss Steve Davis says he ‘wasn’t totally surprised’ that Marcus Haber was drafted into the Canada squad for their World Cup qualifiers next week. Haber was originally on stand-by for the squad for matches against El Salvador and Honduras but an injury has re-opened the door for him to join up with the squad. He will now miss Saturday’s trip to Bradford City thus opening the door for someone else to take his place in attack.

Steve told crewealex.net: “I wasn’t totally surprised to lose Marcus again. I know he was on stand-by this time but I also thought that we could lose him after the weekend games.

“It is frustrating because we have changed to 4-4-2 in recent weeks and he was forming a partnership with young Callum (Saunders). It worked well against Sheffield United but not so well against Eastleigh, although they both had chances to score in the opening 20 minutes.

“Just because we have lost Marcus for the Bradford game, it doesn’t mean we will abandon that as a partnership going forward. It is something we could do again.

“We could keep it at 4-4-2 this weekend and partner Lauri (Dalla Valle) with Callum. We would lose something in terms of height and power but could gain something different because of their movement.

He added: “We have also played 4-3-3 and could go back to that or play with one off the front. We have tried different systems this season and can revert back to that once we know who we have available towards the end of the week.”