Boss says Crewe have to build on the way we finished at Cambridge when Carlisle arrive in Cheshire.

Steve Davis believes that the way in which we finished the game at Cambridge United on Saturday is grounds for optimism as we prepare to welcome high-flying Carlisle United to Gresty Road on Boxing Day.

Crewe lost their third successive game at the Abbey Stadium at the weekend but Davis says that there was a significant improvement on our poor displays against Colchester and Crawley.

Steve told crewealex.net: “It would have been nice to have be talking about more positives and us creating more opportunities, but there were some positives to take from the performance.

“Our performance on Saturday was much better than the previous two and it needed to be. We have watched the game again and there is genuinely not that much between the two sides.

“When you analyse a game again, with the volume down, you do get a different perspective on it. The noise and the volume of the crowd does make a difference at the time and you appear not to be as comfortable as it looks. You see it in a different light.

“We really made two mistakes for their goals. Uche has got between the two centre-halves and Daggers knows he made a mistake. The lad will probably never a shot like that again in his career.

“I thought it was fairly even in the first half and we had a go at them and with a bit of luck and better decision making we could have got back into it and got a point.

“We had some good openings in the last half an hour but got the decision making wrong.

Steve added: “The performance was not a disaster but there is room for improvement and we have to try and produce an even better performance on Boxing Day.”