David Artell could not hide his immense disappointment after his Crewe Alexandra side failed to take advantage of a host of chances at the Broadfield Stadium as Crewe slipped to a 3-0 defeat. 

It really was one of the strangest games of football you will ever see with Artell saying afterwards that the ‘wrong team lost 3-0'. It is all about taking your chances when you are on top and the Railwaymen were left to rue a number of spurned opportunities to be out of sight the interval.

In his post-match interview, Artell told us: “If you do not take your chances when you on top then it can happen. We got in time and time and time again and it was not as if they were difficult chances. We should have been out of sight at half-time but we weren’t. If we had gone in 5-1  up then I don’t think anyone would have begrudged us that.

"We just had to be more careful with our finshing and roll the ball into the net and now whack it or blast. Dario used to say the first thing is never to hit the ball over the crossbar.

“I think the wrong team won 3-0 today because if it had been a boxing match in that first half then it would have been stopped, such was our dominance. At times it was attack against defence but we didn’t take advantage of that. We gave away a poor goal from our mistake and the penalty was the only chance they had in the first half. I am just as annoyed by the set-piece goal from the corner and that is a killer goal with 10 minutes to go.

"The third goal, we were chasing the game and left ourselves open at the back. It was never a 3-0 game but that is what the record books will say because we didn’t put the ball in the net. It is about taking your chances and I don’t think anyone can be surprised that their goalkeeper was voted man-of-the-match because he was.

“It is so frustrating because it was  a good performance from us but we need to be absolutely ruthless.”