Lee Bell says Crewe's players face a busy time in front of the DVD player.

And some of their clips from a desperately poor home showing may be horror rated as the promise shining through Tuesday night's solid performance against Stockport quickly faded away this afternoon.

The Mariners were allowed to chart their course to an easy victory - their first at Gresty Road since September 1990 - as the Alex failed to respond to John McAtee's stunning third-minute opener.

After George Lloyd reacted the quickest to double the lead just over the half-hour mark, the game, ebbed away despite a raft of five changes made by the manager early in the second half, to leave the Railwaymen without a win in the last four.

Bell said: "We need to analyse this result quickly and the players will need to watch their games back quickly, look at the negatives in them and turn them into a positive. We can't let this type of result derail what we're trying to do at this football club every day.

"It was a really long afternoon and to be honest I didn't see that performance coming. But we've got to dust ourselves off and let the players know how we feel.

"We will assess it tomorrow and we can't go too much off emotion straight after the game, but we've got to address this quickly. When we go 1-0 down we can't concede two extra – they keep on ending up as 3-0s don't they?

"We just couldn't get that spark the boys had on Tuesday night. We tried to do that by moving the players around, but full credit to Grimsby they didn't let that happen and I thought they were brighter than us.

"I full appreciate our fans' frustrations, I really do, as they probably came with the same thinking as me after Tuesday night."

With Kelvin Mellor and Rod McDonald ruled out through injury, Crewe revamped their defence with Billy Sass-Davies and skipper Luke Offord back in. Transfer window signing David Amoo also made his first start.

But McAtee's spectacular effort ensured the worst possible start. The frontman - whose was loaned back to the Mariners after his move to Luton last summer - latched onto George Lloyd's flick-on and raced clear to curl a shot into the far corner.

Lloyd, on loan from Cheltenham, then drove a loose ball into the bottom corner from the edge of the box (31) for the second.

The closest Crewe came was Callum Ainley's free kick, which flew just past the post – and that was in the first half.

Southampton's young midfielder Ryan Finnegan came off the bench (Picture credit: Kevin Warburton).

Bell's substitutions - which included a debut for loan signing Sean Robertson, from Forest Green and another run-out for Southampton's Ryan Finnigan - failed to inspire the Railwaymen into life after the break.

Sub Bassala Sambou was offered a momentary sight of goal after being freed by Luke Offord's pass, but Niall Maher shrugged the striker off the ball with a robust challenge and the subsequent penalty appeals were waved away.

Then another loanee, Norwich City youngster Tom Dickson-Peters, came off the bench to seal Grimsby's win, driving in off the far post in the 84th-minute after Daniel Amos' mishit effort dropped at his feet.

Mariners boss Paul Hurst said: "I told the players not to take any chances on what was a difficult pitch. But we still played some decent football and scored a couple of good goals, while we didn't give Crewe a lot of chances.

"We have to win games in different ways - Crewe changed shape three times in the game which was an indication that what we were doing was working."