The club’s Player Development Coach, Kenny Lunt, says that the Crewe Alexandra staff have been pleased with the intensity of performances so far in pre-season.

A stronger Crewe side defeated Kidsgrove Athletic 6-0 on Wednesday evening and Lunt is pleased that the application of the players was top drawer in using the friendly to work on things developed out on the training pitch.

Lunt told the club’s official website: “We have all been pleased with the intensity of our play in the games so far. The application has been high in all the games and they have repeated things that we have worked on out on the training ground.

“They have done what is expected and it is good to see things play out on the grass. Of course there are a lot of things we can improve on and we will pick more things up, the more we train and work together but I would say we are in a good place.

“The younger players at Macclesfield gave it everything and they will learn from the experience. We lost the game in the last 10 seconds because our shape wasn’t quite right in the build up to the goal.

“We were then 6-0 up and comfortable at Kidsgrove with a more senior team and the intensity was good again. The only minor criticism was that we didn’t use the last half an hour to practice our finishing.

“We created enough chances to score more and we just wanted them to be more clinical but overall we were happy with the way they approached the game and we want that to continue against Barnsley this weekend.”