David Artell says that his side cannot afford to shoot ourselves in the foot too many times if we are going to sustain our hopes of promotion. Crewe slipped to our heaviest defeat of the season at Northampton at the weekend and Artell says that we only have ourselves to blame for the goals we conceded.

Artell says that they will go through what we need to go through but Saturday’s home game against Morecambe will be the ideal opportunity to get back on track.

Following the 4-1 defeat the Sixfields Stadium, the boss said: “Some players have apologised that they didn’t play well but it happens, you don’t play well all the time.

“But if you can’t play well you have to make sure your man doesn’t play well, and we didn’t do that well enough.

“We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot like we did.

He added: “We have to be better. We were terrific in the first half an hour if you take the goals out of it. Three of their lads just said we are the best team they have played and I can see why they are saying that despite the fact that they have just beaten us 4-1.”