David Artell was delighted to see his Crewe Alexandra enter a new gear against Altrincham in our latest pre-season game.

The Alex raced into a 3-0 lead inside 20 minutes thanks to goals from Perry Ng, Jordan Bowery and Ryan Wintle and the Crewe boss was pleased with our overall sharpness, especially in the first-half.

Following the 3-0 win Artell told the club’s official website: “We scored three really good goals inside 20 minutes and were certainly more ruthless than we have been.

“The sharpness is coming and the team play was better. We looked a threat every time we attacked in the first half and we could have scored more. It was really pleasing to see because we played some good stuff but there is no one getting carried away.

He added: “We have a lot of work still to do but it was pleasing to see things that we have worked on in training being taken into the game. We took our foot off the gas in the second half and we have spoken about that to them but I thought we were far more dynamic at Altrincham.”