Crewe Alexandra boss David Artell could not disguise his disappointment after his side once again failed to register back-to-back wins. After defeating Cambridge in our last outing, the Alex failed to build on that yet again and slipped to a frustrating 2-0 defeat.

In his post-match interview, David Artell told the club official’s website: “I said to them at half-time that we were still in the game because of the conditions and that we wouldn’t need to have too many passes to create chances but we didn’t do it.

“We didn’t get going all over the pitch and not one of them got the better of their opposite number and when that happens you are not going to win football matches. When things are not going well, you have to do the other side of the game well and we didn’t do that well either.

“The first goal was a terrific strike from Clarke but we could have prevented it. Three players had the opportunity to prevent it from happening by getting across to him and closing the space. Taking nothing away from the shot because it was terrific from him.

“The second goal was soft and we have worked on preventing goals like that from throw ins. We will have to do the work again. They have to learn so we have to go through the video again on Monday.

“Oldham were far the better side today, all over the pitch but I didn’t see anything exceptional. I’ve said it all along that this league is there for the taking, the opportunities are there to be contenders if you can string some results together but at the moment we do not look capable of doing that.

He added: “We are win one, lose one, win one, lose one, draw one and today we were nowhere near where we need to be.”