David Artell believes his Crewe Alexandra side experienced a ‘minor blip’ for the first time this season on Saturday. The Alex uncharacteristically gifted some goals to Pompey, resulting in a 4-1 defeat at Fratton Park and the Crewe boss says that his players have to quickly get that out of the system and focus on our mid-week trip to Accrington Stanley.
Crewe will be aiming to bounce back again after our defeat at Portsmouth ended our mini-run of back-to-backs wins over Peterborough and Oxford.
David told the club’s official website: “We have to be ready to go again and we will be. We suffered a blip on Saturday and have to move on quickly from it because we have another tough game at Accrington coming up.
“We had 70% of the possession at Portsmouth and had chances in the game but if you give the ball to Curtis inside or close to your own box then you get what you deserve. I think they have scored 32 goals this season and their front three have scored or assisted in 31 of them, so you cannot afford to gift them chances.
“It was uncharacteristic from us because we have defended well this season. It is the first time that has happened and although it cannot happen again, they genuinely made the mistakes trying to play football.
“If we had whacked up the pitch and they had whacked it back and gone over the top and got in then I would be even more annoyed. They were at least trying to do the right thing.
“I am not going to shout at them or overly criticize because we have done well defensively and had conceded 9 in the first 12 games. It was just one of those days for us.”