David Artell has told the club’s official website that he has shown that he can rebuild a team after previously demonstrating that when taking over from Steve Davis back in January 2017.  At the time, Crewe Alexandra were struggling at the wrong end of League Two but managed to turn it around, rebuild and win that promotion two years ago.

This season has been one huge struggle and the club need a footballing miracle to escape the drop, but Artell believes he is the man to turn our fortunes around going forward.

Ahead of this weekend’s vital home fixture against Fleetwood, the boss told us: “I like to think that I have received the support of the board because what I have achieved over the last five years. I think that faith is being repaid now and if I thought I was in danger of being relived of my duties, I wouldn’t have agreed to sell six of our players.

“I would have said we cannot do that. I don’t think any other club in the EFL had that level of turnover of players.

“I am under no illusion that this season has not been good enough and we haven’t been good enough, but it is my job to rebuild and make the players we have here, better.

“I was in a worse situation when I took over and we managed to turn it around and that is what I have been entrusted to do again.

“We all understand the cycles here and it is difficult for us to fill the gaps when they do come. It is difficult because we have lost four players who have gone on to play in the Championship. That makes it tough to replace and we are going to have these bumps in the road but you learn a lot in adversity and it has made me a better manager for the experience.”