David Artell admits that it was a quiet dressing room on Saturday evening after his side suffered a second successive home defeat to Northampton Town. Crewe found themselves with a mountain to climb after conceding two first half goals to Daniel Powell and John-Joe O'Toole and although we conjured up some very good chances late on, we couldn’t find that passage back into the game.

Artell says that his former club deserved to claim all three points and a league double over his side and he says that his players knew they had underperformed in that first half.

The boss told crewealex: "They need to be better and they know that, but my neck's on the block not theirs, that's the nature of this job.

"The dressing room was quiet. They know, they are an honest bunch. I told them and they agreed with what I was saying.

"I told them, if you think you have cracked it being 15th in the bottom division, think again.

"That’s the truth. That’s where we all are, and we have to be better than what we just produced.

"We had the best chances, but they are the fine margins. We never felt comfortable with that sustained pressure.

The boss added: "We were our own worst enemy. They didn’t out-football us, but their physicality was better. And I felt we helped them gain the initiative. Did we play with any intent in the first half? I don’t think so.”