David Artell was hugely disappointed with the way things panned out at Gresty Road this afternoon with our old boys, Luke Varney and Billy Waters both scoring in a 3-1 win. Crewe shot themselves in the foot though with captain George Ray sent off for two bookable offences with nearly 40 minutes still to play out.

After the 3-1 defeat, the Crewe boss told the club’s official website: “It was a disappointing afternoon. In the first half I thought we were okay and looked the more likely side to go on and win the game without being anyway near top gear.

“We conceded a controversial goal to go in 1-1 at half time and we said to them at half time if we improve by 10% then we go on to win the game but the turning point was the sending off. That and the blatant handball he missed.

“It is not easy to play with ten men and it is not often that you go on to win. We have played twice against ten men and won them both. It is difficult enough against eleven and we have shot ourselves in the foot. It is disappointing.

“We switched to 4-3-2 to leave two up there and play our full-back high up against their wing back and we were still okay but goals change games. They have had four shots on the day and scored three goals.

“It doesn’t matter if we play with ten or 11 men, we didn’t mark Billy Waters in the centre of the goal and it was a fine finish from Luke for the third goal but that has come from our own corner. We were still in the game really until the third goal.

“Aaron was a bright spark and I thought Ryan was good. Chris worked hard but we needed a few more 7s and 8s out of 10 than the 6s we had.

He added: “I am not sure we are that used to having to play with ten men. Maybe some of the younger ones have not had to play in those circumstances and it happens rarely with us. It certainly hasn’t happened since I took over and that is the first red card of the season for us.”