It was better in spells at the DW Stadium and boss wants those levels again and more for Pompey visit.
David Artell says that his Crewe Alexandra side have to take elements of our performance against automatic promotion seekers Wigan Athletic into Saturday’s home clash with Portsmouth.
Crewe return to the Mornflake Stadium in desperate need of a win after suffering six defeats on the bounce to see us return to the bottom of the League One table.
Crewe performed much better at the DW Stadium, but were eventually beaten 2-0 by Leam Richardson’s impressive side - but Artell states that there were a lot more positives to take from our improved performance.
Artell the club’s official website: “We know we have to do better and be better because we are losing games, but I thought the performance on Tuesday night was better. We had spells in the game and you have to take into account the standard of opposition.
“For example, we dominated most of the game at Gillingham for instance and it is tougher to do that away at Wigan but we gave it a good go and certainly frustrated them in that first half particularly.
“We have to take it each game as it comes but we were better than we were at Wigan than we were in the last two games. We let ourselves down in the last game and a half really. We were fine in the first half against Plymouth and then let ourselves down at the start of the second half.
“We conceded four goals from set-pieces at Accrington which is unacceptable, so we let ourselves down in one area of the game especially.
He added: “We all know we have to do better but we are not going to become Liverpool overnight. I thought the players played well for 80, 90% of the time at Wigan and it is about doing that again against Portsmouth and look to improve on that.”