David Artell could not disguise his disappointment after his Crewe Alexandra side slipped to back-t0-back away defeats at Peterborough. The Alex actually started the game brightly and had chances of their own to take the lead but two goals in a five minute spell from the home side took the game away from us.

Although Crewe continued to have good possession, we didn’t do enough in the second half to test Peterborough and give ourselves a passage back into the game.

After the 2-0 defeat at London Road, Artell told the club’s official website: “For the first 20 minutes I thought we were the better team and had some chances to go in front. Owen (Dale) was unlucky at the far post to see a header hit the back of the lad’s head and Daniel (Powell) could possibly have done better when Pixie put one across the six-yard box.

“But then we have conceded two almost identical goals, to do it once is unacceptable, twice is criminal, so disappointing.

“After that it becomes a bit of a basketball match, we weren’t displeased with because it stretches the game but those goals changed the game. Darren (Ferguson) will say that his side thoroughly deserved it and I cannot argue with that after they scored those goals.

“In the second half we were committing men that left gaps in behind us but we didn’t do enough. We didn’t create enough and some of the decision making and positioning was  suspect today on a tricky pitch. We all saw the pitch and that’s not an excuse.

"We will have to go through it and show them how the game has got away from us because a good 20, 25 minutes is not a football match.

“We will have to lick our wounds, we have got a free week to work with the players and integrate the new four loan players into the work. It will give us time to do that and it’s not a criticism.  

He added: “The game could have changed on 46, 47 minutes because it was another leg breaking tackle on Murph. It is only because he is an experienced midfield player that he has managed to get out of the way enough but it is a horrendous tackle and if the referee doesn’t see that as a red card for endangering a player then we have a problem.

“In my opinion that’s a problem and we have already lost Oli (Finney) this week with a broken leg.”