David Artell was pleased with his side’s response after they made a slow start to our final pre-season friendly against Blackpool on Saturday. The Seasiders took an early lead thanks to Chris Taylor’s accurate curler past Dave Richards but after getting to grips with the visitors’ system, Crewe got themselves back into the contest and deservedly levelled minutes into the second half through Alex Nicholls.

Following a deserved 1-1 draw at Gresty Road, Artell said: “I thought it was a good game and after a poor 20 minutes from us, we played some good stuff. We had to be more aware of their system and once we adapted we were good.

“We made a slow start and went a goal down inside the first ten minutes, so we need to learn from that. They bossed it for the opening 20 minutes but we came more into it and created plenty ourselves.

“We looked a bit vulnerable from set-pieces but we will work on that this week. We won the game against Morecambe from a set play when Shaun scored a late winner, so we will look at that this week in our preparations.

He added: “I thought we defended reasonably well and created some chances against a side playing a league above, so there were some good signs.”