David Artell has told the club’s official website that performances have improved over the last six weeks and he believes that his Crewe Alexandra side are now demonstrating that we are more than competitive again in League One. Crewe won three home games 2-0 on the bounce before being beaten by a strong Sheffield Wednesday side on Saturday. The loss returned Crewe to the bottom of the table once again but Artell believes that we are continuing in the right direction.

The Alex have their reverse fixture against Gillingham this weekend and a first away win of the season in the league would see us go above the Gills in the table. The incentive is right there as Crewe aim to move out of the bottom four heading into 2022.

Artell told the club’s official website: “I think anyone who has seen our last four or five games will hopefully say that we have improved. I think we have and I think we are heading in the right direction.

“We are bottom of the league, that is a fact, but I don’t think we look like a bottom of the league team. We had won three homes games 2-0 before Saturday and we went to Ipswich and didn’t deserve to lose.

“It was fine margins against Sheffield Wednesday, who are a good side by the way. They will be expected to be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.

“We were competitive and if we had gone in at 1-1 then who knows what that might have happened in the second half. As it was, we started the half poorly and went 2-0 down very quickly.

“I thought the performance was reasonably good on Saturday. We were competitive and we were not outfought or out played or anything like that. When you consider the circumstances going into the game, I think the players gave everything they had but just fell a bit short in the end.”