Crewe Alexandra boss David Artell is looking for an improvement in the final third of the pitch when the club take on Oldham Athletic in the Checkatrade Trophy this evening. The Railwaymen host the Latics in the lower league’s Cup competition aiming to obtain a morale boosting victory. A narrow 1-0 defeat at Coventry City at the weekend was our fifth on the bounce and marked our fourth game out of those five games without registering a goal.
Crewe were unfortunate to lose the game at the Ricoh Arena with Zoumana Bakayogo’s 'played-for' clearance off Jodi Jones striking the corner flag to allow the winger to make inroads into our box and ultimately pull the ball back for Duckens Nazon to score the only goal of the game in the 10th minute.
Artell was left to rue our bad luck but says he is looking for more from us in the final third of the pitch.
He told crewealex.net: “When you think you have taken all the blows that football can give you, we were on the receiving end of a bizarre goal on Saturday. That is the nature of the beast for us at the moment. We are not getting much luck but that is football and what can happen.
“We didn’t create enough either. We huffed and puffed and it was a similar game to the Cambridge one. We hit the bar and had a few crosses flash across the box but it’s not enough. We need to be better.
“We can be better creatively. We need to play quicker be more cohesive in the final third. We have to improve on that.
“We need to look after the ball better in the final third and make better decisions. All those little things add up and I wasn’t particularly pleased with some of our passing on Saturday.
He added: “We didn’t create enough and it’s goals that count.”