Paul Green display delights Crewe boss Dave Artell

Posted Monday, December 30, 2019 by PA

Crewe boss Dave Artell piled praise on returning veteran Paul Green as Crewe beat Scunthorpe 3-1 to keep the pressure on League Two leaders Swindon.

The Railwaymen bounced back from their Boxing Day loss at Salford, which former Republic of Ireland international Green missed through illness.

Green helped pull the strings in the middle of the park at Gresty Road and scored in the first half.

He doubled Crewe’s lead after an opener from Daniel Powell, who went on to seal the victory after Lee Novak had briefly reduced the arrears for Scunthorpe.

Artell said: “I thought Greeny was the best player on the pitch. While Callum Ainley got into good positions and for all the space Tom Lowery was afforded all of that came from Paul Green doing the horrible side of the game that sometimes goes unnoticed.

“He didn’t half make a difference and he deserved his goal after ending up in the box on the end of a great move.”

Crewe looked a potent force whenever they went forward and overworked Iron keeper Rory Watson kept the score down, with one tip over from Charlie Kirk being particularly memorable

Artell added: “My one big criticism is that we didn’t score more. We got into some terrific positions but didn’t make best use of them.

“It was a much better performance than Salford. We had a video session split between Salford and today’s game to make sure that didn’t happen again. We needed to know where we needed to improve and today we did all the things that are synonymous with us.”

Scunthorpe boss Paul Hurst says he is not reading too much into his side’s second consecutive defeat because of the quality of the opposition.

“We haven’t become a bad team overnight, but we were up against a very good team and it is no disgrace to have lost that game,” said Hurst.

“We lacked some energy. Kevin Van Veen was ill before the game and I probably made a mistake playing him.

“We had some spells but we didn’t find our spare man whereas Crewe always did. They are a young team with lots of quality on the ball. They showed that if you take care of that football you can make it very difficult for the opposition.

“It was a good finish from Lee Novak and it may have been a nervy last 10 minutes for them but we conceded two minutes later which took the winds out of our sails.”