David Artell said individual mistakes were what cost his side after a 3-1 home defeat to Wycombe. A Chris Porter goal just before the hour mark gave the Railwaymen a glimmer of hope but Lewis Wing's second goal in additional time secured all three points for the visitors.

A 3-1 defeat drowned any hopes of back-to-back league wins for the first time this season and afterwards, the Crewe boss told us: “We’ve played well for 35-40 minutes but you can’t concede the goals that we’ve conceded, if you concede like that, you’re not going to win many games of football.

“I don’t want to take anything away from Wycombe and it’s not sour grapes, but they didn’t deserve to score three goals. We didn’t make them work for any of their three goals.

“We have to work hard for our goals, and we scored a really good goal to get us back into the game. We had the momentum for half an hour of the second half, but we have gifted them a two-goal lead and even a third.

“If you’re 2-0 down 10 minutes into the second half then you’re giving yourself a mountain to climb and don’t get me wrong we gave a right good go, but then there’s naivety at the end.

“They’re learning harsh lessons. When you’re getting older lads making mistakes it makes it difficult because the young lads are surviving. We don’t want to go away from our principals but at the same time you’ve got to be effective with it as well.

“You have to understand where is going to hurt the opposition, but we were naive enough to shoot ourselves in the foot for the third time in the game, that’s the disappointing thing.”

He added: “You have to stick with them because that’s what will make them better. As hard as it is to stomach that is where we are at the minute. It’s hugely frustrating. But we’ve been here before and we’ll make sure the players pull through again by becoming more consistent.”