David Artell says his Crewe Alexandra side deserved to see out the final minutes of stoppage side and hold out for a terrific three points against Sunderland. The Alex certainly deserved to be 2-0 at the break and in truth could have been more as was the level of our performance.
It needed two wonder strikes from Sunderland substitutes’ Chris Maguire and Jordan Jones to wipe Crewe’s lead out in the second half. To be disappointed with only picking up a point against Sunderland shows how far we have come on our return to League One.
After the dramatic 2-2 draw, Artell told the club’s official website: “We deserved to win the game and their manager (Lee Johnson) agreed with me at the end. He said we didn’t deserve that but it is a case of should have and could have and it says 2-2 in the papers tomorrow.
“I thought we were good value for three points today and it has taken a club the size of Sunderland to score two worldies to get a draw. It is disappointing because we probably should have scored more than the two we did. That is something we have to improve on because we had chances to score two or three more.
“I thought we controlled the game and they have scored an absolute rocket from 30 yards and then we hadn’t dealt with a long ball in the 7th minute of stoppage time and that is way football goes sometimes.
“The lads performed to the level and the only disappointment is the result. If we play like that then we will win more football matches than not and that is why we have been strong at home. We haven’t lost since a 1-0 defeat to Gillingham and we have to keep that going.
“I felt we should have been given a penalty in the first half when Charlie (Kirk) was clipped after he took it over their keeper but he remained on his feet when he should have gone to ground. But he is young and I don’t ask my players to go down.
The boss added: “We had two or three other chances to score a third and possible fourth but we didn’t and it has taken two wonder strikes to draw at little old Crewe.”