Grimsby Town manager David Artell believes the Mariner's should have scored more in their 3-0 win over Crawley Town

Crawley Town were defeated 3-0 by Grimsby Town on the opening day of the season, with Mariners manager David Artell believing his side 'should have scored more'.

Photo by Barry Coombs

Jaze Kabia opened the scoring in the 10th minute from the spot before Cameron McJannet doubled the hosts' advantage on the half-hour mark. Evan Khouri rounded off the scoring for Grimsby midway through the second half when his low-driven strike found the bottom corner.

Grimsby had 20 shots over the course of the 90 minutes but managed to get only six on target, leaving Artell disappointed that his side were not more ruthless.

Speaking to Grimsby Live, Artell said: "I'm never satisfied, but we would've taken three goals from three different scorers with a clean sheet as well.

"It's just a start, and we should've scored more; we should've been a lot more ruthless. I don't want to sound like Scrooge at Christmas, but it's my job to keep raising standards and making sure that the players keep getting better."

Grimsby were dominant in all areas of the pitch and limited the Reds, who struggled to work the ball up the pitch, to just one shot on target, leaving the 44-year-old happy with his side's overall performance.

"They [Grimsby players] deserve a huge amount of credit today, of course, but we'll keep coaching to get more out of them and make them better. We were dominant in all areas of the pitch; you don't have 41 touches in the opposition box otherwise.

"That's the pleasing thing, there are still plenty of things to work on although we were firmly in control of the game and limited them to very few chances, so our clean sheet was deserved also.

"We looked strong, powerful, and played some good football at the same time, so it was a fairly pleasing afternoon."

When Crawley were promoted to League One for the first time in nine years at the end of the 2023/24 season, they endured a humbling 6–0 defeat in their fifth game of the campaign — a result that didn't define their season.

Artell insisted it's way too early to predict how the current season will unfold after just one game.

"I'm sure that is not a true reflection of Crawley, given they had a good crack at staying up in League One last year, so they're no mugs. How dominant we were or how much of an off day it was for Crawley, we don't know yet, because it is just one game.

" Every one of our players was better than their players, which is unusual, but we're not going to get carried away, because this first result does not define the season.

"After ten or fifteen games, we will know a lot more about both teams, so it's a good start, but there are another 45 to play, and we know it is a long old slog to the end of the season."