Boss says that if the players thought they had cracked it after Burton win then this was a quick, sharp reality check.

David Artell says his Crewe Alexandra side deserved to lose at home to Morecambe last night after making too many poor decisions throughout the 90 minutes. A Mikael Mandron finish from Rio Adebisi’s cross minutes into the second half gave Crewe a possible lifeline into the game at 2-1 but Morecambe completed the job with five minutes remaining to kill off any hopes of us taking anything from the game.

Artell told the club’s official web-site that we didn’t deserve to either.

“We deserved to lose. We made far too poor decisions throughout the 90 minutes and when you do that you cannot expect to get anything from the game, ‘said David.

“Some players I felt were living off Saturday’s performance (against Burton) and must have thought they have cracked it. Well they haven’t and they were told that afterwards.

“If you think that then that is the performance you get and we all saw it. We forget to run about. Greg Leigh was allowed to walk into the box and cross for the first goal and the second was similar but perhaps even worse. The third one has come from a goal kick and that is out of possession.

“In possession, we made so many wrong decisions with the ball and when you do that you are not going to get anything from the game.

“We couldn’t build any concerted pressure for any length of time because we couldn’t keep the ball well enough and I don’t know maybe some of them disregarded the opposition and thought they didn’t have to work as hard as they did to beat Burton on Saturday.

He added: “It is a young team and a new team and we have to make sure they go again on Saturday.”