MISTAKES ARE COSTLY AGAIN AS ALEX LOSE ON BOLTON TRIP

DAVE Artell was left to rue a costly period just after half-time in Crewe Alex’s 2-0 defeat at Bolton Wanderers. The Alex remain at the foot of the League One table following the loss, with just one league victory all season.

Crewe had actually impressed in the first half and restricted Bolton’s threat going forward.

But the home side took advantage of Alex errors to ultimately wrap up the points in the second half. Artell told the club’s website: “A crazy ten minutes from us has cost us the game. We had frustrated them in the first half and the shape was good.

“They had a couple of crosses that flashed across the box and Trig had one or two things to do but I thought we were fairly comfortable. “Granted, we could have been better in possession but their crowd were frustrated when we came off at half-time but we couldn’t carry that on and we gave away two awful goals from our point of view.

“It was two poor mistakes from our point of view and we cannot give goals away like that.

“At the minute, we are letting negative thoughts come in. They got booed off at half-time and if that is not an incentive to say we are frustrating them and doing the right thing then I don’t know what is.

“You carry on doing what we do, it becomes more open and you go on and win the game but a crazy 10 minutes cost us. If you make mistakes like that then you get punished.”

Artell did, though, point to a couple of positives which he hopes can help his side to kick-start the season in the coming weeks.

One of them was the performance of Zac Williams, who was making his league debut.

“The positive was Zac Williams. For a 17-year-old making his league debut, he was outstanding. He should have scored with his header but he was virtually mistake free.

“I thought our shape was good, especially in the first half but we have to be better in possession and exploit the opposition when we get into good positions.”