Danny Schofield working on ‘a process’ as Doncaster take a point from Crewe

Danny Schofield admitted changing the style of football at Doncaster would “be a process” as he started his tenure at his hometown club with a 1-1 League Two draw at Crewe.

Schofield revealed he had gone through an emotional and busy couple of days after being appointed head coach following the sacking of Gary McSheffrey.

His new charges grew into the game at Crewe after Courtney Baker-Richardson headed the hosts in front after 14 minutes and George Miller had his penalty kick saved by Arthur Okonkwo on the stroke of half-time.

But the striker made up for his miss when he latched onto Harris Biggins’ pass and made Okonkwo pay for his decision to race off his line by slipping the ball around him and into an empty net for a 77th-minute equaliser.

“It’s been two mad days trying to cram a few things,” said Schofield. “I’ve had a month out of football and this opportunity has come very quickly. But this is a club very close to my heart as I am from Doncaster.

“The fans will want to see effort and application on the pitch and a type of football being developed. So it will be a process, but today we’ve got a well-deserved point and we’ll take that, reflect on it and prepare for the visit of Stevenage on Tuesday night.

“It’s very emotional which is why I am into coaching football. You want to feel that buzz and it is difficult when the pressure is on and you are losing games, which I experienced at my previous club.

“But now I want to build relationships and connections at Doncaster, the whole club and it takes time to do that. And it takes time to develop a clear identity and a style of football.”

Crewe failed to make the most of their positive start and boss Alex Morris admitted a sequence of draws has left them stalling in mid-table with only one win in the last 10 league games.

They failed to capitalise on Baker-Richardson’s looping header from Tariq Uwakwe’s cross, which arrowed into the top corner.

Dan Agyei was denied by Jonathan Mitchell and Baker-Richardson headed wide in front of goal before Okonkwo preserved Crewe’s lead, flinging himself in the path of Miller’s 45th-minute penalty which was awarded for a handball by Baker-Richardson.

Doncaster were better after the break, but – until Miller made amends – the closest they came to levelling was an Adam Clayton free-kick which curled the wrong side of the post.

Crewe boss Morris said: “We could say we got what we deserved for missing chances in the earlier part of the game or you could say we were really unlucky because Doncaster didn’t have many chances.

“Football is a cruel game, but if we perform and play like that then it’s going to see us winning games.

“In the end, we found a way not to win the game, but there’s lot of positives to take out of it.

“However, we’ve drawn another game and we need to get back on a winning track. I’m hoping that it will look a lot different in a few weeks’ time when we’re in that situation and we’ll go on and score two, three goals.

“There was definitely a sense of anxiety and nervousness because we wanted to get that win.

“We’re stuck in 13th place and we are not going to move forward unless we start to throw some wins together.”