The intensity to training has ‘gone up a level’ according to Alex boss David Artell and although he says that not everything should be judged on 90 minutes against Shrewsbury Town this weekend, he admits that getting more tactical work into them has been a huge benefit.

The Crewe Alexandra manager and his staff worked tirelessly to get four new faces into the club before the summer deadline and that was before having to contend with losing a couple of players due to retirement and another two being transferred.

Artell says things have settled down in the past week or so and that the players have all responded positively in the sessions.

Artell told crewealex.net: “The intensity in training has gone up and we all felt that on the Thursday after the window had closed on the Tuesday night. It wasn’t as though the training was poor before but it has been a bit disjointed with players missing sessions due to illness.

“Players are very perceptive and they know that things are going on behind the scenes with players. They understand the game and knew that we had to bring players in.

“Now it is more settled. The window has closed and it was if the players and staff went ‘right’ this is us now, let’s get down to work’. We are heading in the right direction. I thought that before the deadline because the performances have improved game on game.

He added: “Do we need to keep on improving? Absolutely and we will continue to put more work into them.”