Boss says 'tricky recruitment' is a game of cat and mouse.

David Artell has told the club’s official web-site that his recruitment planning continues. The Crewe boss has revealed that he has made contact with players who will be going out of contract in the summer as he and his staff continue to work through the list of potential targets. Artell will not reveal which players he is after nor which positions he would like to strength his squad with.

Artell told crewealex.net: “I’ve been on the phone a lot lately and hopefully that will pay off more once the season ends. We have been working hard to put plans in place and our scouts and staff have been out watching players.

“We have made contact with one or two who are out of contract in the summer and we will wait and see what happens. We will have to wait and see because players are contracted until June and July and they are in a strong position. They can wait and see what is out there for them.

“Recruitment can be tricky and it is certainly not a science. It is more of an art.

“All we can do is put the processes in place and although we won’t get them all right, we hope that by doing that we will minimise the mistakes.

“I think we improved in January by bringing in Jordan (Bowery) and Callum (Cooke). They have come in and helped us and we did our homework on them before they came in. If we can do that with our permanent signings then that will put us in good shape going forward.”