ARTELL: CREWE ARE ON THE RIGHT PATH AHEAD OF TOUGH AWAY DATE

CREWE boss Dave Artell is relishing testing his team against one of the promotion favourites tomorrow.

The Alex travel to an Oxford side who are rated the fourth-favourites for the League One title and who got their first league win of the new campaign with a 4-1 victory at Accrington last weekend.

But Crewe will go there with confidence after their 2-0 win at home to MK Dons gave them their first points after they had been edged out in their opening league games, against Charlton and Hull.

The Oxford game is the latest in a difficult start to the season for Crewe whose opening five league fixtures are completed with a game at home to Wigan, the third side relegated from the Championship. But Artell is looking forward to the challenge having seen his side’s improvement over the opening weeks of the season rewarded with Saturday’s win.

He said: “From everyone we have spoken to so far in League One, they have said Coventry and Oxford were the best two teams in the league last year. They lost the play-off final, but they can’t be any mugs to get to that position.

“We know it is going to be a tough test. We have got a tough start. We have three relegated teams and a losing play-off finalist in the first five games. You don’t get much tougher than that.

“But I think anybody who saw us on Saturday would say we can give anyone a game, so hopefully that will be the case on Saturday.” Artell said before the MK Dons game that he could see the improvement in his side, right from their opening game of the season when they were beaten 2-1 at home by Lincoln in the Carabao Cup. So, he was pleased to have a performance rewarded with three points as the Alex saw off the Dons with first-half goals from Mikael Mandron and Oli Finney. He said: “You look back at Lincoln, there was a bit of naivety on my part. We were too open, too expansive, still League Two-esque. Then you fast forward four games to MK Dons and we looked a proper outfit.

“That is massive credit to the players, no-one else. They have taken on board what we have said to them in training and they are starting to get there. “We felt Charlton was a good enough performance to get something out of the game, but we didn’t, then we definitely thought that at Hull. We were probably the better team, only marginally.

“Then you fast-forward another seven days and the result matches the improved performance. If we keep improving then we have a chance of winning more games of football.”