Crewe Alexandra boss, David Artell, was pleased with the impact made by substitute Callum Ainley in last night’s 1-0 defeat to Sunderland. The creative midfielder replacing Oli Finney with the Alex chasing the game and his introduction certainly saw Crewe finish the game strongly without really carving out that perfect opportunity to equalise.

Ainley certainly took his chance, got on the ball and tried to find that decisive pass to get us in behind a stubborn Sunderland defence.

After the 1-0 loss at the Stadium of Light, the boss said: “The first thing is that Callum was unfortunate to miss out.

“In the end we went with a more natural midfielder in Oli Finney and Callum was unfortunate to be the one that missed out.

“He came on (last night) and carried on where he left off against Wigan. He didn’t do his chances any harm with his performance. I thought he was bright, creative and looked the most likely player to cause them problems with his positioning and passing.

“You never know in football, we could have nicked one and come away with an unlikely point and that looked more likely with Callum on the pitch.”