David Artell: Cambridge draw feels like a defeat

Posted Wednesday, March 13, 2019 by PA

David Artell believed his Crewe side should have come away from Cambridge with three points.

Chris Porter missed a glorious opportunity to win the game but fired wide six minutes from the end as the Alex had to settle for a point from a goalless draw, extending their winless run to five matches.

Cambridge have now drawn three home games in a row and have only suffered defeat at the Abbey Stadium once since mid-October.

“I have to say it feels like a defeat,” Artell said. “If that was a boxing match it would have probably been stopped after an hour.

“I don’t think 2-0 at half-time would have flattered us and I don’t think 3-0 by the end of the game would have flattered us.

“We wined and dined Miss World, took her out, spent a fortune on her, took her back to the hotel and then went to sleep.

“It’s that bit of quality, that bit of composure, ruthlessness. We’ve had six, seven, eight chances. Not hard chances, glorious chances.

“As a collective, everyone’s got to be culpable and apportion a certain amount of responsibility to it being nil at both ends, because we defended well, and that’s not just the back four or five.

“They (Cambridge) had a couple in the first half, one was pinball and the other one we’ve not defended well, and the only other time where I felt under any pressure was when we kept fouling them.

“Even then we defended well. I don’t think we looked particularly vulnerable or anything, but that just stopped our momentum.”

Colin Calderwood was disappointed his Cambridge side did not reach the standards he had hoped for from his side.

“We made so many mistakes after a fairly bright five minutes in the opening salvo of the game,” Calderwood said.

“The opening period looked quite promising but it was fairly short. I thought we should have been more forceful in certain positions, we should have played into areas and tried to work for set plays.

“To lose the ball and allow them to counter with the threat that they had was not good enough for us. They’ve missed a couple of chances at the end, so we’re grateful that we’ve got the point.

“If you turn over possession as much as we did then it becomes awkward to defend and the back four did quite a bit and the two boys in centre midfield were asked too many questions.

“They’ve run, they’ve grafted, but they haven’t hit the levels that we have to to really deserve to win any game, but we’ll be thankful for the point and the effort that the boys put in.”