Too early for Nick Powell to leave Crewe Alexandra (From Crewe Guardian)

Too early for Nick Powell to leave Crewe Alexandra

10:55am Friday 6th January 2012 in Crewe Alexandra By Toby Robinson

STEVE Davis remains confident Crewe can hang on to Nick Powell despite further reports of Premiership interest.

With the 17-year-old in fine form over recent weeks, both Arsenal and Chelsea have been linked to a move during the transfer window.

Arsene Wenger’s long-standing interest in Powell has been well-documented while Chelsea first-team coach Steve Holland was instrumental in his development here at the club’s academy.

But Davis is adamant any transfer would be too soon at the moment.

“I’ve heard nothing,” he explained.

“Nick is a young lad and in my opinion he’s not ready to go anywhere yet.

“He’s at the best club for his education and when the time is right, he’ll go.

“With him playing for England, he’ll already have had his head turned a couple of times.

“But he’s a level headed lad.

“He’s got great confidence in himself so he probably thinks he should be playing for Real Madrid or Barcelona anyway – he’ll be looking beyond those that have been mentioned.”

Despite limping out of Monday’s disappointing 1-0 home defeat to Morecambe, Powell should be back to face struggling Plymouth at the Alexandra Stadium on Saturday.

“He’s been terrific for us and it was a blow for us when he had to come off,” continued Davis.

“Hopefully he should be alright for Saturday.

“Every time we attacked at Bristol (5-2) we looked like scoring but it didn’t look like that against Morecambe.

“That consistency isn’t there and we want to do it in front of our own fans.

“We’ve got a great away record at the moment but our home form isn’t good enough.

“We’re trying to get people to come and watch us and I think they saw effort, skill and determination.

“But we lacked that bit of quality and couldn’t find the net.”

Davis is still searching for that elusive targetman with decisions over extending the loads on Wes Fletcher and Jamie Lowry also imminent.

“We’re still short in a couple of areas and certainly need that big man up front,” he continued.

“It would give us another option, there’s times when you need to go more direct and we rarely score from crosses.

“We’re getting a lot into the box and not able to convert them so the right type of player would make a big difference.

“They’re not easy to get in but we’ll continue to look this week and see if we can get one in.”