The Mariners bounced back from their home defeat against Harrogate on Good Friday with a fifth win in their last eight away games to be three points outside a play-off place.

Artell said: “After a poor result but decent performance on Friday, we’ve come back very professionally.

“I’m pleased because I’ve seen some really good performances and lots of very good ones.

“The only disappointment was only being 2-0 up at half-time.”

The Mariners have six games remaining and Artell added: “If we continue playing like this we’ll win more games than we’ll lose.”

Artell criticised Crawley captain Jay Williams for the way he got sent off moments into the second half.

Referee Bobby Madley showed Williams a straight red card for kicking the ball at Clarke Oduor seconds after fouling him.

Artell said: “It was a deserved red card. He booted the ball in the players’ head from 10 yards away.”

New Crawley head coach Colin Kazim-Richards would not be drawn on the incident and said: “I haven’t seen it back yet.”

Crawley remain four points above the bottom two on a day when the four teams below them all lost and Kazim-Richards admitted: “Other teams have done us a massive favour.”

The former Derby, Brighton and Sheffield United forward, who had won his first two matches in charge, apologised to fans for being “out-competed” in the first half.

He said: “I would like to thank our fans as when I looked over at 94 minutes they were still there – it would have been easy for them to walk out.

“I’m going to apologise because first half our team were out-competed. That’s on me and it won’t happen again.

“But second half, take out the red card, it would have been a different game but we had made it tough for ourselves.

“We did, however, show a lot of character with 10 men.”