COVID meant Crewe's players were left high and dry before the promotion run-in last year.

But by the time they beat lowly Stevenage on March 7 to go top of League Two they had done enough to ultimately secure an automatic promotion spot later decided by points per game after the season was halted.

Now, as then, Dave Artell is eyeing the home straight, but this time Crewe will need to make up ground - currently seven points - to secure what even diehard fans would readily admit would be the unlikeliest of back-to-back promotions.

With leaders Hull City arriving at Gresty Road on Good Friday (K.O 3pm) and equally tough assignments against Portsmouth and Charlton to come the odds may be stacked against Crewe winning enough of their 10 remaining fixtures to sneak into the top six.

But standing in their favour is their impressive home form which saw them compile an 11-game unbeaten run that was only ended by the 3-0 reverse at the hands of Burton Albion in their last Gresty Road clash.

They will need to reproduce that in their last five home fixtures, while making the most of three games against current bottom three, Rochdale, Bristol Rovers and Wigan, but also improve on the road where only seven points have been acquired from the last seven road trips if they are to keep hopes alive of extending their season beyond May 8.

And it won't be because of any lack of encouragement or optimism from their manager, who pointed out: "It's still all to play for. You look at what Gillingham [now up to sixth, but with only seven games left] are doing and people are talking about them getting into the play-offs.

"We know winning five games on the spin in this league is tough. But if we have a good last 10 games we've got a chance to get in there. We've got to make sure we give it our best shot."

The Crewe boss unearthed some statistics that demonstrate how powerful his side's attacking threat has been this term. But they also reveal why they have remained mainly in the mid-table region.

Artell pointed out: "We've created the fourth most chances in League One and if you take chances you have got the opportunity to win games. But we could have had more points on the board if we'd taken some of those chances."

Three of leading scorer Mikael Mandron's 10 goals have been in cup competitions and while the former Gillingham striker's physical attributes have offered Crewe a different outlet, his goalscoring is some way behind the division's prime marksmen, who include Hull's 17-goal Mallik Wills - the scorer of the only goal of the game in the reverse fixture back in September.

That defeat and those by similar margins at Ipswich and when hosting Gillingham are painful reminders of the need to convert chances and the value of having a prolific goalscorer in the ranks.

Although, clearly the spending power of several of League One's top six clubs when it came to oiling deals via agents' fees shows what Crewe are up against every week.

Figures released this week by the FA show Hull handed over more than even Sunderland to agents brokering their deals, with their £543,238 outlay in 2020/21 the highest in the division. Only Gillingham, who spent nothing, came in below Crewe's £4,500 agent bill.

But while the relative expense of the squads on show tomorrow is unequal, after last weekend's international cancellation of their trip to Charlton, Crewe's players may have more of a spring in their step than the visitors as the games in April come thick and fast.

"You'd like to think we are refreshed," added Artell, contemplating a fortnight's preparation for the visit of Grant McCann's side. "We've got give it a go. We've got a five/six week period in which we've got to try and get into the play-offs."

That bid will be helped by Luke Offord's return from a serious hamstring injury suffered in mid-January.

The 21-year-old is available for selection after coming through two under-23 games, and he will offer another option in a back four that, the Burton game aside, has looked solid enough in registering two clean sheets in two of the last three games.