David Artell says that despite a number of his squad being hit by injuries and illness over the festive period, he still has options to make changes to the side that lost 3-1 to Salford on Boxing Day. Crewe were without senior professionals, Paul Green (ill) and the injured Chris Porter and Eddie Nolan.

The Alex was unimpressed with our first half performance at Salford and admits that not many of his players came out with much credit with what was one of our most lacklustre 45 minutes of the season. It has not occurred on too many occasions this season but it turned out to be one of those days at Salford on Thursday.

Artell was critical of our application in the first 45 minutes but he did save some praise for some of his players in what was a rare disappointing day for us this season.

The Alex boss said: “There is some food for thought there. The double substitution gave us some life with Owen and Callum. Owen had a chance to score a header and he was disappointed not to score and Callum got us up the pitch with some runs.

“I thought Daniel Powell tried. He kept going and was a shining light for us in the last 20 minutes. I thought Ryan Wintle was fine and Hunty was okay, but other than that we were still wanting a lot more from the others.

“It was one of those performances that haven’t happened all that much and now we have to put it right at home to Scunthorpe on Sunday.

The boss added: “We will do a session on Saturday and see how they look. There is scope to make changes if I or the staff believe it is necessary but there is nothing we can do about the Salford game now. We cannot change the result, we have to move on and focus on Scunthorpe now.”