David Artell praises Crewe for bouncing back from Sunderland loss at Doncaster

Posted Sunday, October 25, 2020 by PA

Crewe boss David Artell felt his side did themselves justice in their 2-1 win at Doncaster Rovers.

Charlie Kirk put Crewe ahead before Josh Sims equalised in quickfire fashion for the hosts.

But Harry Pickering curled in a wonderful free kick in the second half to secure the win for Alex.

Having been disappointed with aspects of his side’s performance in defeat to Sunderland in midweek, Artell felt Crewe showed more of what they are about against Doncaster.

“I was pleased with the way we played because we did not do ourselves justice against Sunderland on Tuesday night,” he said. “As good as they are, and we were lucky to only lose 1-0.

“But good teams don’t play badly two games in a row and, while we didn’t play football against Sunderland, we did today.

“In the second half, Doncaster had more possession, but I felt we were more dangerous in the final third.

“I also think one of their players (Brad Halliday) would have been sent off instead of being shown a yellow card if we had VAR, because it was a shin high challenge even if he did slip.

“But they have some really good attacking threats and they were the division’s top scorers going into this game, so it was pleasing that we restricted them to so few chances.”

Darren Moore says his Doncaster side have no choice but to brush off the disappointment of seeing their winning run ended as they ready themselves for a quick turnaround.

Rovers head on the long trip to Plymouth Argyle on Tuesday, leaving Moore with little time to analyse where they went wrong against Crewe.

But he was not too downhearted by the performance and felt his side – who beat Portsmouth and Ipswich in their last two outings – deserved something from the game.

“We’ve got to move on and we can’t harbour on it too much because we’ve got another game on Tuesday,” Moore said.

“We’ll have a look at this one over the weekend, and look at the areas where we needed to be better and we’ll move on.

“I think on the basis of the game, we deserved something from it.

“I thought we had the better chances but it was probably just the final touch that let us down. When I look at it our final touches on the ball, our final pass which really would have opened them up.

“We did enough at times but I just wanted us to be a bit more assured with it in terms of working through the pitch.

“Take nothing away from Crewe, they stayed in the game and it was a moment of brilliance that won them it.”