David Artell pleased to see Grimsby keep play-off charge on track and ‘win ugly’

David Artell was pleased to see his Grimsby side could “win ugly” as they stretched their run of victories to four games, beating Fleetwood 2-1 at Blundell Park.

George McEachran opened the scoring in the first half with a great strike from range – his first goal for the Mariners – before Ryan Graydon equalised for the visitors just past the hour mark.

Grimsby captain Danny Rose ensured the game was not level for long with a headed goal just three minutes after Graydon’s equaliser, and the Mariners held out for the third-straight 2-1 win and fourth overall.

Artell said: “I think you need to know how to win ugly in this league and that’s what we’ve done today. It wasn’t vintage us, but we limited them to very few chances, and we probably could’ve scored more in the end.

“All these little checkpoints, one defeat in eight at home, four wins on the spin, are important in showing our progression.

“We’ve kept the momentum going with another positive result despite not having played near the level we can get to. We had two moments of quality that really mattered and showed resilience without making many mistakes.”

In a game lacking in big moments outside of the goals, the first of those strikes was an award contender from McEachran, and his manager has challenged him to score more often.

“He’s only scored one goal before [in his career], and it wasn’t like that,” added Artell.

“We know he’s very good technically, and players in his position are still required to score, so there’s no reason why he can’t do that more often.”

For Fleetwood, it was a frustrating afternoon in which they were not able to truly stamp their authority as the hosts proved to be masters of their own conditions.

Assistant manager Adam Temple said: “It’s disappointing, given it was a game where we felt we could get something from it, but we told the team that we can’t keep having the same conversations after the fact.

“We’ve got to understand what the game needs in the moment, and we didn’t do that in the first 15 to 20 minutes in terms of imposing ourselves on the game.

“It was a great strike [for the first goal], but we’re disappointed with how we defended from the first and second phases because they are basic things the team know about.

“We did a bit more in the second half, but it was a scrappy game all the way through, which was somewhat down to how they [Grimsby] approached the game.

“The pitch didn’t help either with the way it was, but it’s the same for both teams, and they played it better than we did.”