David Artell admits that his Crewe Alexandra have just come up a bit short in three of our games this season.

The Alex boss says we have been left to rue missed chances against Newport, MK Dons and Carlisle United and he has called on his team to be as ruthless as we were against Morecambe on the first day of the season when we scored six terrific goals.

Artell is backing his side to end their recent goal drought of only scoring one goal in the last five games and that came through Ryan Wintle against Fleetwood Town in the League Cup.

Ahead of this weekend’s Cheshire clash with Macclesfield, David told us: “We have played well against the MK Dons and Carlisle and only have a point to show for it. We also had chances at Newport and of course, Paul Green saw his poor penalty saved. With 20 minutes left there was only one team going on to win that game if that penalty had gone in.

“The performances have been decent but we have fallen a little bit short. We needed to be a bit more ruthless in front of goal like we were against Morecambe. We scored two early goals and went on to blow them away that day.

He added: “It is those fine margins, more care with a final pass or better with our finishing but we are still getting into good positions and it will come again.”