The Crewe Alexandra manager David Artell has praised the attitude of his experienced defender Michael Raynes. The Manchester based defender has recently lost his place in the starting line-up following the return to fitness of captain George Ray, but Artell has been pleased with Raynes’ influence around the dressing room.

The summer signing from Carlisle took the defenders for the warm-up at Stevenage on Saturday and Artell says that he had no influence over that. Raynes did it off his own back to help his teammates prepare for the game.

David told crewealex.net: “Michael has been very good. I didn’t tell him to help with the warm-up on Saturday. He did that off his own back and that is credit to him. He is a team player and a leader.

“Michael took that upon himself to do that and his experience has been invaluable to us. He knows he has to fight for his place like anybody else and he is doing that.

“I’ve said to the younger players here that they need to be like magpies. There are some top pro’s here and they have to try and learn from them. They will learn so much from the likes of Raynes, Nolan, Greenie, Ports and Dagnall. They cannot fail to.”