Too many below par in Lincoln defeat says disappointed Alex gaffer.

David Artell believes that his Crewe Alexandra side ‘didn’t think their way to solution’ as a clinical Lincoln side ran out deserved winners at Sincil Bank. Crewe were beaten 3-0 by Michael Appleton’s promotion chasing side and Artell was left disappointed by the overall performance. It was an out-of-sorts performance from us and we were duly punished by Lincoln’s finishing.

After the final whistle, Artell told crewealex.net: “First and foremost we must credit Lincoln because I thought they were very good on the day. They hit us with two counter-attacking goals and showed that clinical side of the game that we didn’t show today.

“It was a tough afternoon and without taking anything away from Lincoln I thought our performance was abject bar one or two and when you have eight and nine and then including the subs then you are going to lose the game and you are going to lose it heavily. That is how it was.

“We can make excuses about the number of games or the knocks we have picked up and all that but I thought we beat ourselves up today. We are better than we showed today. It wasn’t like us. It was three defeats in 17, 18 games before today and that is a great run in this league but we cannot be beaten like the way we were today.  

“We can accept one abject performance in a run like that. Yes we tried to play football but I just felt that we didn’t play with enough thought. We found it tough and couldn’t come up with a solution to that but that is what to expect when you play a very good side like Lincoln. Take nothing away from them.

“There was no real thought to our play at times today and we tried different things to try and change it with the personnel but like I’ve said it was abject at times today. I’ve asked the players to have a look at themselves and me and Kenny will be doing the same thing. It is important to analyse why we performed like that to learn and improve.

“There is plenty to play for and we have to keep going. We can accept one below par performance but we have to move on and make sure we are better on Tuesday.

The boss added: “The one real positive was Rio’s (Adebisi) performance. I thought he was our best player by a distance. I thought he was excellent. He did terrific on Tuesday when he came on and carried that on. He was competitive and gave as good as he got.”