David Artell has told his Crewe Alexandra players that ‘we are a work in progress’ but that cannot be used as any type of excuse. Crewe have lost two tough away games at Portsmouth and Oxford and will be aiming to get that first league win under our belts against Accrington Stanley this weekend after being held to a 1-1 draw in our home opener against Cheltenham.

Artell has seen improvement in all our performances so far and he wants us to transfer our strong finish at the Kassam Stadium into Saturday’s meeting with John Coleman’s Accrington side.

Artell told the club’s official website: “I believe we have improved in every game we have played. There were certain elements of the Portsmouth game that were better than the Cheltenham game.

“We have had to cope with disruption and one or two other things like Tommie Hoban retiring and needing to get another in, but we were much better at Oxford. The second half performance was a lot more like us.

“I said to the boys after Oxford that we are a work in progress but that it cannot be used an excuse. We will get there. I believe in the staff and the players. They are good players and we will get there.

“Everyone is working as hard as ever and we showed against Oxford that we can match a side that is going to be there or thereabouts again. If we had taken a couple of those late chances we could even had won it.

“The fans, who were terrific all night, certainly saw the effort the lads put in and they stayed behind to clap us off.

He added: “We know that there is still plenty to do and although I don’t think we are that far off, we have to keep working hard to improve every day in training and the lads are doing that.”