Boss left shell-shocked by his team performance in FA Cup exit.
Crewe Alexandra boss Steve Davis was shell-shocked as his side produced arguably their worst performance of the season to lose heavily to Cheltenham Town in the FA Cup. Gary Johnson’s side ran riot in tonight’s FA Cup replay at Gresty Road with goals from Pell, Barthram, old boy Waters and Holman seeing them emerge deserving 4-1 winners. Crewe’s consolation goal came through substitute Ryan Lowe in the 64th minute after he replaced the injured Alex Kiwoyma at half-time.
After the hugely disappointing defeat, Steve told crewealex.net: “It was a poor night for us. We weren’t at the races at all. Right from the start we couldn’t cope with their tempo and their intensity. They overpowered us and it was men against boys this evening. I haven’t said that for a while but it looked like it tonight. We got knocked about and when you look at the bench, they are all young as well.
“Our boys struggled and they blew us away. Right from back to front we struggled with their pace and they were men, strong, organised and they overpowered us. We were all under par and it was a strange performance after we played so well on Saturday.
“We had little spells in the game but nowhere near enough. We had a bit life in the second half when Lowey came on but we felt that after a good performance on Saturday against Plymouth that we could just turn up and pass the ball around. They were in for massive shock right from the first minute until the end. We couldn’t cope and we have given away some real basic goals, just poor defending throughout the team.
“We gave the ball away too easily, didn’t track our men and made some really poor decisions. The goals were really poor from our point of view, although we think the first one was offside, half a yard offside when we watched it back.
“I thought Dan’s goal should have stood as well. I thought the centre-half has tried to body check him, missed him and Dan has gone the other side and slotted it in. the referee has given a foul but I didn’t see a lot in that. Nothing went for us tonight and it was similar to the Wycombe away game where it comes out of the blue a bit.
“We just told the players at the end that it wasn’t good enough. We were not expecting that and I don’t think the players were either. You can see from the reaction afterwards in the dressing room that they didn’t think it was anywhere near good enough and now we have to pick ourselves up for Barnet at the weeekend.
He added: “We are all just so desperately disappointed for everyone connected with the club, the staff, the supporters, everyone because I know how much the people value the FA Cup. I am not sure some of the younger ones appreciate what this competition means, perhaps they don’t value it as much as I do.”