David Artell refused to be drawn on the controversial decision that certainly cost his battling side a point. The Crewe Alexandra boss felt the first Barnet penalty was justifiable but the second one four minutes from time was soft to say the least. Ray was penalised after appearing to get a strong contact on the ball.

The Crewe boss wasn’t pleased with the overall performance though but admitted that a point for our efforts would have been fair.

Artell told the club’s official website: “Two penalties have done us but I am not going to get into that. The first one was, the second one wasn’t! I won’t say more on the referee.

“We didn’t deserve to win, we didn’t deserve to lose. A draw was a fair result and the two penalties have been the difference.

“It was played in terrible conditions and on a poor pitch. Normally it is a good pitch here but the weather has done that. I didn't think we were at the races today.

"We defended manfully and worked our socks off but our ball retention at times was terrible. We have given the ball away more here today than we have in the last six games. Our decision making was poor was times but I cannot lambast the players after we were done by a poor decision.

“They didn’t craft too many chances out in open play. They had a scramble from a corner when Ben was fouled but again the referee missed that and hit the bar. Wintle had one similar that was blocked. Theirs has hit the crossbar.

Artell added: “We know we are a work in progress. We knew that before the game but I thought a 1-1 draw was about right. We shouldn’t have lost but there is not a lot you can do about the decisions from referees.”