CREWE FC are soldiering through a congested opening month of the Cheshire League season which has taken its toll on playing resources.

The new joint management team of Liam O'Reilly and Lee Degnen have had their work cut out fielding sides with work commitments leaving them struggling to field sides for three midweek outings.

The Cumberland Arena-based club has already chalked up five games even though they kicked off their campaign on August 7, a week after some of their rivals.

That would have been six if last Saturday's trip to Garswood United had not fallen victim to the weather. So far their only success has been a 3-0 opening win at Whaley Bridge Athletic, with defeats at the hands of Winstanley Warriors, FC St. Helens, Egerton and last night's 4-1 defeat at Knutsford leaving them third from bottom of the Premier Division table.

That is currently headed by AFC Knowsley and Broadheath Central, who have both played eight games, demonstrating the urgency with which league officials have wanted to crack on with fixtures with the ever-present threat of Covid.

Club chairman Steve Parker admitted: "It's been relentless because the league has extended the number of midweek games. The way the fixtures are coming we'll be a third of the way through the season before we know it.

"We have had lads who haven't been involved in midweek; they take out half of our squad and we've taken lads out of the reserves to make up the team."

A change in the dugout after the departure of Peter Griffiths has seen Degnen join O'Reilly, both as joint first-team managers, as the club looks to make up for the Covid-hit 2020/21 campaign, which was shelved in January although a brief end-of-season tournament did provide some action after restrictions were eased.

"I spoke to Liam about it [change] and he wanted to do it. Scholesy (Degnen) didn't want to come in as an assistant but they're both happy with the arrangement," explained the chairman.

"They complement each other in that Liam is very much a motivator while Scholesy passes on the technical bits – they're both good friends."

And the chairman admitted: "It's been up and down, but when everyone is available we have an unbelievable team and the ambition is to go and win the league. But we need to get out of August and these midweek games and take it from there.

"We should be up there challenging after 10 to 15 games."

Crewe FC host the leaders AFC Knowsley on Saturday at the Cumberland arena (K.O 2pm), while their reserves - who are second in the table after winning both of their opening games - travel to Warrington to play Greenalls Padgate St. Oswalds.