Crewe Alexandra 4 Cheltenham Town 1

19:26, 01 Jan 2026Updated 19:34, 01 Jan 2026

Your thoughts on today’s game?

Three goals we have gifted, really. We’ve given the ball away. We keep doing this at the moment, in turnover. We’ve got possession and we are giving the ball away and then we are punished for it. We know we’ve made three mistakes, which has put them 3-0 up, especially so early in the game. That’s a disappointing part of it really, giving away three really soft goals where we’ve had the ball and we are in charge of the game if we have the ball. There was a really strong wind early on and I don’t want to say this, but I don’t know where it went in the second half, that wind. It makes for the game being a lottery, really, the wind. Crewe have been a good team, who have been up there for a while and we’ve come here and lost, but we’ve been the better team today. Certainly in the second half and there wasn’t the wind there was in the first 20 minutes of the game, either. We made those three mistakes and one effort they’ve had on our goal. It’s a great header by the way (for the fourth) and I don’t want to take anything away from the lad who scored it. We got caught on our heels a little bit then, but what happens a little bit is when you make that many subs, it disrupts your defensive line. I don’t want to take anything away from the header, but just before it, it’s our free-kick. The fourth official said to me, ‘I’ve told him’ but they end up with the free-kick. Had we had that free-kick, the free-kick for them doesn’t even happen. The consistency today, for me, was really poor with that. But I’ve just said to the players in there. The first game I came here, we won 2-0. We kept a clean sheet, Joe (Day) made a couple of good saves and all of that. We have lost today, 4-1, but we are a much better team now than we were back then. A much better team. I feel for the guys today because anyone can make a mistake. All of those boys in there who made a mistake today, like at half-time, they’ll be beating themselves up about it and some of them are only young guys, starting out in their careers. I am really proud of the guys today because we were good. I have to try and forget that scoreline and look at the game as a whole. If we play like that most weeks, we’ll win more games than we lose. It was tricky for 20 or 25 minutes, really windy, we’d made mistakes and when you go 3-0 down it can easily become five or six. I thought we were really good today and didn’t deserve that.

You made two changes at half-time and changed shape, leading to a period where you looked like you were going to get that second goal and then you never know…

Yes, at 3-1 if we’d got the next goal, I definitely think we’d have gone on and not got beaten today. We could easily have scored another goal. All of a sudden the stadium gets nervous. It was nervous anyway at 3-1 when we kept getting chances, you could hear the crowd getting a little bit edgy. That’s not criticising the Crewe lads or anything like that, but you could tell they were getting edgy. Not many teams will come here and out-football Crewe and we did that, particularly in the second half anyway.

How pleased were you with the way the formation change worked?

Yes, with that three at the back, I hear people talk about Ruben Amorim (Manchester United manager) so much and there were parts of that second half when we were in a four, and parts when we were in a three. The game is about being flexible. We were mainly in a three in the second half, because we had so much of the ball. I am pleased for George (Miller) to get back on the pitch, get himself a goal. Bickers (Jake Bickerstaff) deserved a goal. When he came on, he was excellent. I am pleased for George obviously because he’s been out a long time and the physio Jimbo (James Redman) was getting a bit nervous so he kept looking at me and saying we needed to get him off, so I’ll go with Jimbo on that because he’s worked a long time with him.

A good, confident finish from George Miller as well

It was. What was good, and I talk to strikers about this, when they get clean through, once you’ve had your first touch to get it out of your feet, let the ball have another roll of circumference and then you get to have a little look at where the goalkeeper is and he was going through straight on goal. If he is coming in on an angle, he probably needs to take a touch to move the goalkeeper, which means he can either slide him down the side or reverse him. His first touch was good. Someone said to me that his one-on-ones, he hasn’t always finished. I am not sure if that’s right or not, but either way, I’ve only seen him one-on-one once and he has a 100 per cent record under me! I thought the lads were good today and I am really disappointed about the scoreline because we haven’t deserved that today.

George Miller up front with Jake Bickerstaff in the second half. How did you feel that worked?

Yes, I don’t know if that’s something I will look at or stick with. I don’t know the answer to that yet. It wouldn’t necessarily have been the change in formation that pinned them back because we’d have pinned them back playing 4-3-3. We spent all half-time chatting about the second half, rather than what went on in the first half because you get 15 minutes and if I had talked about the first half, I would probably have made the lads even more demoralised than they were. There was no point in harping on, when you are a player you know when you’ve made a mistake so I didn’t need to tell them. I might need to correct them when they get back in, saying they should have done this or that, that’s brilliant when you can commentate on things with hindsight.

Ethon Archer’s final game and you made sure he went over to the fans and got his ovation at the end

Yes, I told the guys I wanted to do that on the back of a win today. But the bottom line is, it’s the right thing to do anyway. We’ve put on a good performance and he deserves it. He’s a young boy that’s come through non-league, come up the hard way, fights like hell for his family. I wanted him to be the best player on the pitch today. It was good he got a good ovation from our supporters, who were brilliant. Not just through the game, but at the end of the game and the lads really appreciated the support they got. Our fans are not stupid and they’ll know the boys put it in today. They were full of praise for them and rightly so. A totally unjust result.

What’s the situation with Hakeeb Adelakun and Isaac Hutchinson now?

I noticed there has been a lot of talk about Isaac. I was asked a question and I answered about whether he wanted to stay here, which he does and he’s made that clear. It’s not for us to contact Bristol Rovers. There is a date in the contract that says they can recall him. He’s on a season-long loan, but there is a date they can recall him from and a date that closes in January. It’s not for us to be contacting anyone else. When the agreement was done, it was done for a season loan. That’s why I haven’t contacted anyone. I will know more about Haks perhaps before Crawley (on Sunday). I wouldn’t be holding my breath on that one. We have to wait and see what materialises from that. I knew when we took him it was for two months, almost like an old loan you used to be able to have. He’s been with us for two months and I said he’d come and do some good things for us and he might get us three points somewhere along the line that helps us in our quest to stay up. He’s already done that, so he doesn’t owe us anything. We’ll wait and see, but I’ll probably have more news on that by Sunday.

Is he available for Crawley as it stands?

Yes, probably.

What’s happening with Sam Sherring?

They’ll be decisions made on the loans going forward. I have a little bit of breathing space over the next couple of days before we play again, to finally look at them all. I don’t know if there is a recall in Sam’s but he’s been out injured for a while. It depends how many games we’ll get out of him. We need games out of players we have on loan. That’s going to be really important to us going forward. He came in and at the start he was doing well. It’s a strange one because he’s out on the training ground running as much as the other lads are running. It’s a tendon. If he’s fit and well, obviously we’d like to keep him. Jacob Mazionis and Taine Anderson probably won’t be coming back. Tommy (Taylor) and Bickers: I’ve already made my mind up on Bickers, I’d like him to stay. He’s done very well, Jake. He’s coming on all the time. Tommy is a funny one because I love him. He wasn’t on the bench today because I felt I was covered in forward positions. With him being one of the loan players and a decision to be made, I need to sit down and have a chat with him. I already have done today, but I want to give him more time than that. I think he’s a great kid. I spoke to his agent the other day. We can’t strap ourselves with as many loans as we’ve just had. We might have to. The only other time I’ve been at a football club with seven loans was when I was manager of Pompey and we were in administration, so it was the only way I could get a squad together. I might have had eight at one stage. We have seven here, so you always have to leave two out and how do you work that? Sometimes you might want somebody more in a position so you have to have that loan, but you have another lad not doing anything. Whatever happens with Tommy, he needs to play more football than he’s had in the period of time I’ve had him. I wish Tommy was one of our own. I’d love to work with him over a period of time, but it’s how much football I can give him. He really needs regular football all the time.

Some players are playing very little football and others are playing none, so do you envisage other players moving out this month?

Maybe, yes. There is a good chance of that. The timing of it has to be right. I would want to be right with them, which I always am anyway. Some of them are great lads, as well. If they are on the bench for a period of time, they are going to want to get some football. I get it. It’s not an easy job this year. I wouldn’t say it was easy any year, but there is a lot of managing to do this year. I think there are two spirals in football, up and down. No in between. I think we are on the upward one, but you have to use your experience to navigate round some of the choppy waters we’ve been through and what’s ahead.

Are you expecting business early, on the incoming front?

I don’t think so. It’ll be steady. We’d like to do it, but you have to bear in mind you are in with a pool of other clubs. We are on an island and everyone is looking at those other players. If there are teams higher up the table than us, they may get the nod, so that’s why I need to think about the loans and in those periods of time, whether we have the option to send them back or they have the option to recall them back. There are a couple we are in charge of until we get a call from another club. If we get a call from another club, they can recall them and there’s nothing we can do about it.

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How closely will you follow Ethon Archer’s career now he’s moving on?

Yes, all the time and I’ve told him. I keep an eye on lots of players I’ve had in my career and Ethon will be another one of those players. I’ve said to him, any time he needs to call me, I will be on the end of the phone and if I don’t answer it’s probably because I am on it. In January it might be tough for him! But any other time, I’d be there for him. He’s been a great kid. I know there has been ‘is he up for it anymore?’ but the kid played today as committed as he possibly could play out there and deserved his round of applause at the end. I am really pleased for him. I know a little bit about his upbringing and his background because we’ve had conversations and I love it when kids like him get the opportunity. I wish him all the best and hope it goes well for him. I will miss him being around, for sure.

George Miller’s return from injury delayed slightly by him needing to be registered, or did it all work out well timings wise in the end?

We had to take George off our squad list because he was going to be out for four months. His own work and his work with the physios, a combination, has been brilliant, the physios and George himself. We had an opportunity of maybe bringing him back into the squad a couple of weeks ago, but we couldn’t until today. Even if we’d signed someone today, they can’t play until, say the 4th. But George could come back into our squad today because he’s already been a registered player for us. My overriding thoughts regarding that is that it probably did George good to have two and a bit weeks of solid training which got him into a position where he could play that long today.

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