Crewe Alex: Donaldson can fire Alex up table

by Gwyn Griffiths

CLAYTON Donaldson has been urged to continue his improvement and help fire Crewe clear of the bottom four.

The £150,000 summer capture has netted three goals in the past two games, including last weekend's FA Cup winner against Ebbsfleet.

And Steve Holland believes Crewe fans will see more of the former York striker's prowess in front of goal, once he has acclimatised to League One football.

Apart from a handful of substitute appearances for Hull in his teens and an ill-fated spell at Hibernian, Donaldson's experience has been confined to the Blue Square Premier, where he scored 42 times in 91 games for York between 2005 and 2007.

"It is too early to see how Clayton will do and he is just finding his way at the moment," warned Holland.

"But we keep working with him on the training pitch and we hope he can get the goals.

"There are areas of his game we can improve.

"He's not an untried youngster, although he is inexperienced in playing league football.

"But he has the ability to put the ball in the net and we are pleased with what we've seen from him so far.

"Hopefully that will continue and the confidence he will gain from getting his goals will obviously be a positive."

The Crewe coach will mull over recalling Tom Pope alongside Donaldson for tomorrow's six-pointer with Leyton Orient, while contract talks continue with the Stoke-based forward.

Dennis Lawrence is also available again to provide another option at the back for Holland, who is still without Chris McCready.

While he continues his quest to complete at least one loan deal for a midfielder before the O's home clash, he can count on having Anthony Elding as back-up on the bench.

The out-of-favour striker is believed to have turned down a loan move to Bournemouth, who are also interested in young Alex defender Ashley Westwood.

"If you try to get new players into the first team, then others fall down the pecking order and there's been some interest in a couple of our players," admitted the Alex coach.