David Artell hails Grimsby response as tactical change sets up win over Salford

David Artell praised his Grimsby team’s ability to adapt as they improved from a slow start to beat Salford 3-1 at Blundell Park.

Kieran Green’s opener did not arrive until the 33rd minute with the visitors having the better of the play in the opening half-hour, but Charles Vernam and Jude Soonsup-Bell added the hosts’ second and third goals before the break.

Cole Stockton pulled one back early in the second period but the damage was done already as the Mariners followed up their impressive win away at Notts County on Saturday with a league double completed against another top-seven contender.

Artell said: “I thought we wasted the first 20 to 25 minutes of the game trying to beat their press, but only going backwards.

“Once we got the message on about how we could better expose them, I thought the lads took that on board really well to score three in nine minutes.

“That obviously changed the flow of the game, and they had a spell directly after half-time but the subs we made swung the momentum back in our favour to see it out.

“We knew they’d change at half-time because of the subs they had already had to make, which took us a moment to get to grips with, but we did which is another feather in the cap for our team.

“It’s one defeat in 13 and two wins from two this week against tough opposition is great, and we can obviously make it outstanding with another win on Saturday.”

Ammies boss Karl Robinson was almost in disbelief to see the game get away from his team in nine first-half minutes after a comfortable opening, with multiple injury-enforced substitutions making matters worse.

He said: “We started well, and I thought we looked by far the better team for 30 minutes, but losing Kelly N’Mai so early was a catastrophe.

“Ben Woodburn got hurt as well, and the fact that he couldn’t run led to their second goal, but it was just a mad moment in the game where we gave up the three goals.

“It was strange to watch because it felt like a game where we had complete control tactically, and they didn’t break through any of our zones, but it was just one of those things.

“Not one of our substitutions in this game was tactical because we had so many injuries and there wasn’t enough on the pitch from our perspective to stop their ‘eights’ from getting through in that short period where they scored the goals.

“With a few tweaks we could hurt them again, but in that nine minutes before the break some of our players lost complete control.”