David Artell says he is pleased that the Colchester disaster aside, we are looking a harder side to beat this season. Crewe recorded their fourth clean-sheet in seven league matches to secure our first away point of the campaign and Artell says that our defensive resilient has been very encouraging.

Crewe couldn’t find a goal of our own to claim all three points at Whaddon Road at the weekend but Artell was pleased with the way we restricted their efforts on our goal.

David told crewealex.net: “We were defensively sound at Cheltenham and if I am honest I couldn’t really see them scoring. They had a shot at the end of the first half and had another one blocked in the second half but other than that I cannot remember too many others.

“We had four free headers and the best of those came in the dying minutes. We had the best chance and could have snatched it. We possibly deserved to be in front before that because of the four or five chances we had before that.

“They were relying on us to make a mistake and we didn’t look like making one. We had plenty of chances to have won the game. We just needed to be a bit more ruthless.

“On the flip side it was another clean-sheet and we are looking a harder team to beat. We might have lost that game 1-0 last season, so it was a step forward.

“But we have got to be better. There is room for improvement and we have to take that into the Port Vale game this weekend.”