Crewe Alexandra boss David Artell believes that he his side have shown they are now a tougher outfit to beat.

As a former defender himself during his own playing days, Artell and his staff worked tirelessly in the summer to make us harder to score goals against and the Crewe manager feels we have reaped the rewards of that work. Our goals against column has certainly improved with the Railwaymen conceding 36 goals this season in League Two with six of those goals coming against Saturday’s visitors’ Colchester United!

The Crewe boss told the club’s official website: “We identified in the summer that the biggest area where we could make an improvement was in the goals against column.

“We worked hard on improving that and the players have worked hard to make us harder to beat. If we hadn’t conceded six against Colchester early on in the season then I am sure we would have had one of the best records when it comes to goals conceded. I actually don’t know how many we have conceded because I don’t look at the table, but I know there has been a vast improvement.

“Even away from home we have become harder to beat and that has been the frustrating thing losing a number of those games by the odd goal.

“We have certainly become more competitive and resilient and have been in almost every game, probably Colchester aside. “