Lee Bell insists Crewe have to learn from Morecambe defeat

Posted Sunday, March 03, 2024 by PA

Lee Bell wants Crewe to learn from their mistakes after letting a two-goal lead slip to crash to a late 3-2 defeat to Morecambe.

Having moved into the League Two automatic-promotion places with victory at Notts County seven days previously, Crewe were in the mood to keep the pressure on their rivals and were well set when Shilow Tracey added to Elliott Nevitt’s first-half header with a thundering strike soon after the break.

But the Shrimps staged a thrilling late comeback thanks to goals from Joe Adams, Jordan Slew and Farrend Rawson, which left Bell questioning his players’ decision-making.

“We were in total control up to the 69th minute and then the game was turned on its head and they got a winner. Full credit to Morecambe for the spirit they showed, but the goals were down to individual and collective decision-making,” said Bell.

“We’ve got to take lessons from today and learn from them; we will need to go through it and analyse it. We have owned our wins this season and we’ve got to own the defeats too, take it on the chin and look to get better.

“The game was changed in five minutes and if we had done the right things and doing the basics would have got us the right result.

“The players are on the floor, but we’ve got to learn from this as we’ve got 11 games left and if we pick up in the areas we need to improve then we will be fine.

“While it’s disappointing to lose a game when you’re two up, it’s what we’re going to do now to bounce back that matters.”

Ged Garner wasted a gilt-edged chance for the visitors when he dragged an early effort past the post.

Crewe, then, turned the visitors’ counter-attacking against them with Nevitt bagging his 12th goal of the campaign before Tracey showed his unpredictable flair when cutting in to fire an unstoppable shot past Archie Mair for the second.

But Morecambe were back in the game with two goals inside five minutes, first Adams’ side-footer slipped under home keeper Harvey Davies.

Then when Davies pushed out another Adams effort, substitute Slew drove home the equaliser.

Mair kept the scores level with great saves from Lewis Leigh and Josh Austerfield before Rawson stunned Gresty Road with a back-post finish.

Morecambe boss Ged Brannan said: “We showed great character. We’d played really well in the first half and created chances – we should have been ahead early on.

“But we let Crewe into the game and they caught us on the counter for their first. It needed a great show of character and our defending in the last five minutes summed up that.

“I told the players at half-time that Crewe were no better than us and they went out and did so well. Crewe could not cope with Joe Adams in the first half with the way he was running at their defence and I am made up he scored a goal as he had a couple of chances. And no-one was stopping Farrend scoring that goal, he’d have taken their whole team into the net.

“We’re ninth now and the league is crazy. Crewe are up there, but we dominated them at times, so we’re not too far behind.”