Artell hails strikers after Crewe’s victory over Newport

Posted Sunday, March 25, 2018 by PA

Crewe manager Dave Artell hailed the impact of his strike force after both his forwards scored in their 2-1 triumph at Newport.

A solo strike from Harry McKirdy laid the foundations for back-to-back wins for the Railwaymen, who are now 12 points clear of the relegation places.

The on-loan Aston Villa forward flicked the ball over the head of Mickey Demetriou and calmly finished to make it 1-0 before his strike partner Jordan Bowery got in on the act.

Bowery’s ninth goal of the season came after Charlie Kirk struck the post and he followed up to hit the back of the net.

Demetriou headed home from Robbie Willmott’s corner to make for a tense finish, but it was too little, too late.

“Harry McKirdy came up to me in the week and said he hadn’t been playing as well as he wanted to be at this point,” said Artell.

“He said that he felt like Didier Drogba when he came in and he wasn’t feeling like that now. But I told him it would come.

“I don’t think he’ll ever be like Drogba, but he’s a natural goalscorer and we saw that when he flicked the ball over the defender and stuck it in the corner.

“Jordan Bowery is a different person at the moment as well. He believes in himself and he’s content, his home life is good and he’s scoring goals. He has to keep that belief and enthusiasm and the love of scoring goals.

“That’s 13 points out of 18 and there aren’t many teams as in form as we are, certainly not performing as well as us. We’ll keep on going well and head into the Easter period in form.”

Mike Flynn accepted his team were not good enough as their fading play-off hopes were ended.

“We got what we deserved really,” he said. “I wasn’t happy with today’s performance, every decision we made was wrong.

“The first goal came from our throw in and then it was kamikaze defending after that.

“We’ve spoken about it with the players, it seems like when we’re the underdogs we come out on top but when we’re the favourites we cant handle the expectation.

“Their first goal was handball, but the referee couldn’t see it because our players were in the way.

“We weren’t good enough for the first 79 minutes and we’re not making excuses.

“I’m hoping we can use that underdog status again against Coventry because all the expectation is on them.

“The effort was there today but the decision making wasn’t there today. We can’t control them when they’re on the pitch, they play on instinct. It’s frustrating they didn’t take it on board today.”