DAVE Artell confirmed backroom changes at Crewe have seen under-23s manager Alex Morris step up to become his assistant.

The Alex boss revealed the revamp, which follows a lengthy review of roles, recruitment and player development, after yesterday's 2-0 defeat at Sunderland, the club's 10th in their last 11 games.

With Morris taking over as Artell's sidekick, former assistant manager Kenny Lunt has been moved into a role as player development manager, while Lee Bell, the former under-18s/youth team manager has been appointed as under-23s boss.

Morris, a former academy graduate whose career was cut short by injury, has been acting as first team coach in recent seasons, combining it with his under-23s role which he was promoted to when James Collins became former Alex manager Steve Davis' assistant in 2015.

Former long-serving midfield stalwart Lunt had been appointed as assistant manager when Artell took over the reins from Davis In January 2017.

Now Artell wants Lunt to focus on helping to make the step into first-team football smoother for Crewe's young set without the reliance on non-league loan experience.

After last summer's exodus of key players, Crewe have found the gap between their departures and blooding new young talent, like Zac Williams and Connor O'Riordan, telling.

Artell told the club website: "We're putting resources where I think it is needed. It is all positive changes.

"Alex will step up one and Kenny, rather than being assistant to me, is going to become player development manager and look after individual players and get them through.

"He's excellent at that and it is putting him in a new role which he is very good at. The players are going to appreciate that individual work rather than all of them going out on loan."

Crewe are also recruiting for a head of recruitment, effectively a chief scout role.

At the Stadium of Light, Crewe mounted admirable resistance until crumbling to two late goals to Black Cats subs Dan Neil and Patrick Roberts.

While Alex Neil's side were dominant they were booed off at the break by the home faithful in the 30,036 crowd after barely troubling Dave Richards in the Crewe goal.

Alex striker Chris Long threatened on several occasions to break the deadlock before Neil fired home in the 84th-minute and former Manchester City attacker Roberts followed that up with the second (89).

Artell pointed out: "We've had the three best chances of the game and we got beat by the sucker punch at the end - that seems to be the story of our season."

Sunderland head coach Neil - who spent three months in advisory capacity at Crewe earlier in the season - said: "We were very dominant through the game. Certainly we didn't create as many opportunities as we'd have liked.

"But every team in the league is going to come here and try and frustrate us. Sometimes when you have that many attacking players on the pitch it allows the opposition to sit deep and narrow.

"I think the game altered when the substitutes came on, they made a big impact."