Artell says his team are not far off after encouraging away performance at Ipswich.

David Artell says that his players are working hard in every training session to turn our dominance in possession into more goals. Crewe had a number of good opportunities to have scored the first goal at Portman Road on Saturday and we have now lost 1-0 to promotion hunters, Hull, Sunderland, Lincoln and Ipswich.

The Crewe boss couldn’t disguise his disappointment for his players after they gave their all over 90 plus minutes against the Tractor Boys.

Artell told crewealex.net: “100% we can practice finishing and we do. It is only one more pass between two white sticks and we practice finishing off the moves. Translating that into the games is harder but I was surprised we didn’t score on Saturday with the chances we had.

“If we had scored three or four goals I don’t think anyone could have complained. We created enough and the performance was above the level, above League One level but we have to turn that dominance into goals. We have take those chances because that is the name of the game.

“If you don’t take those chances then you leave yourself wide open to what happened on Saturday. We cannot be crest fallen and I can’t criticise the players nor would I because the performance was terrific and I am a firm believer that if you put the performances in then the results will follow.

He added: “It didn’t quite happen for us on Saturday but there were lots and lots of positives to take from it.”