David Artell has told the club’s official website that the injury set-back to James Jones has not changed his thinking when it comes to adding new recruits in the January window.

The Alex boss has made no secret of the fact that he would like to add a right-back and a central midfielder to his squad this month. He admits that dealing in the short window is not ideal or straight forward.

The Crewe boss told us: “We are working on trying to bring one or two in. You can never really say anything until everything is finalised because things can change very quickly in football.

“I’ve made no secret of the fact that I would like a right-back and a central midfielder. The injury to James (Jones) has not changed our thinking on that. It hasn’t dramatically changed things because I would have still wanted to do that if Jonah was fit.

“We have to look at it slightly differently because we are short on numbers in midfield with Jonah being injured and Conor (Grant) going back to Everton.

“I would say it is harder to do business in January. There is a shorter time span and some clubs are reluctant to allow players out because of concerns of their own. Some players have gone but there is still some available and we are working hard on that.

“We were all out at the weekend and will be out and about again this week. We are adding names and crossing other ones off. It is a fluid market and it is not an exact science.

“I thought we did well last January when we were able to bring Jordan (Bowery) and Callum (Cooke) in on loan to help us and that is the challenge again.”