David Artell is hoping that his Crewe Alexandra side learned a valuable lesson following our 2-1 home defeat to Coventry City on Saturday. The Alex boss was disappointed that we did not play the conditions well enough, especially when we had the advantage of the wind in the first half.

Artell says that the experience of the Coventry players allowed them to see the game out better than us and that they kept us too far away from their goal in what was an uneventful second period at Gresty Road. The blizzard conditions did not help the match as a spectacle and Artell says that sometimes we have to distance ourselves from the ‘purist football.’

The Crewe boss is now preparing his side to bounce back against Forest Green Rovers this evening. He said: “We passed the ball really well at Stevenage and it played into our hands in the last 15, 20 minutes when they tired.

“Against Coventry we were not as streetwise. We didn’t play the conditions very well. In the first half we should have penned them in with the advantage of the wind and played more in their half of the pitch. They would have struggled to have got out.

“That doesn’t mean hitting it long, it means playing a longer ball because the wind will hold it up. The wind was strong and we didn’t use it enough. We needed to play more effective football.

“Sometimes in conditions like that you have to move away from purest football. You cannot play it in conditions like that. You don’t play in conditions like that every week and we had to recognise that and adjust accordingly to be more successful.”