David Artell is hoping that his Crewe Alexandra team can take the positives from Saturday’s performance against Luton Town into Sunday’s FA Cup tie at Blackburn Rovers. Crewe eventually went down 2-1 to The Hatters at Gresty Road thanks to a dubious winner from Luke Berry but Artell was pleased with certain aspects of our play against the league leaders.

Ahead of our trip to Ewood Park, Artell told the club’s official website: “There was nothing between the two teams. We were up against one of the best teams in the division and certainly one of the biggest spenders and we were a bit unlucky not to get anything from the game.

“We gave ourselves a mountain to climb with them scoring two goals in quick succession but after we recovered from that I thought the players kept going. In the last 10, 15 minutes I thought that there was only one team looking more likely to score again.

“We shouldn’t have been 2-0 down in the first instance but I was pleased with the response. They reacted well and we could have nicked a point. We didn’t quite manage it but there were some positives to take from the performance. “