David Artell has told the club’s official website that last night’s heavy defeat at Colchester has to be the ‘one and only’ inexcusable performance of the season.

The Alex boss was left shell-shocked after his side conceded six goals in Essex last night when we had previously only conceded two in our opening four games of season. No-one saw the result or performance coming after we had made a fairly resilient start to the new campaign.

Artell told crewealex.net: “We have another game on Saturday at Carlisle and we need to see a reaction.

“Most teams at this level will have some bad performances along the way but that has to be our one and only like that one. That has to be it.

“We cannot have another unacceptable performance like that and Saturday gives us the perfect opportunity to get back on track.”