Bolton Wanderers scored a dramatic late winner as they secured a valuable three points on the road thanks to Amadou Bakayoko's late effort.
Wanderers travelled to Cheshire aiming to narrow the gap to the top six and keep their faint play-off hopes alive.
In a first half which was scrappy in windy conditions at Gresty Road, Wanderers improved after the break and Dapo Afolayan struck the post as the visitors looked more likely to score.
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And that late goal came when Kieran Sadlier's free-kick came off the post and George Johnston crossed back into the box for Bakayoko to net his 11th goal of the season and reduce the deficit to the play-offs to nine points with seven games of their season left.
After the game, Ian Evatt spoke to the press and here's his immediate reaction to the victory.
You left it late?
“It was never going to be easy, I think, and to be fair, it’s just as bad for Crewe as well. They’re a team that try and play what I deem the right way.
"These types of games on a pitch like that with the wind and the conditions, they’re always going to be tight and sometimes it’s set plays that are the difference. I thought the way we started the second half, we deserved a goal. We hit the post a couple of times and made the keeper make some saves.
“It wasn’t pretty, it was never going to be pretty. We just had to play in the right areas and just be physical and direct at times and run into channels and we did that better- in the second half than we did in the first half. Baka’s managed to get us an important goal.”
Not for the first time this season?
“I don’t think anyone wants to be labelled a super sub but you can still be a very good player coming off the bench and especially the squad we’ve got now, we’ve got the difference of having people to come on and change things off the bench with Kyle and Kacha and Baka now, we’ve got Izzy coming back as well and sat there waiting for opportunities.
"Sometimes the bench can make the difference in games and it was the difference today.”
Does that reflect in some way in the team and the player and the squad you’ve got, the resilience with another late goal?
“What was pleasing today is that we kept going. It’s really, really difficult to play any sort of football on that pitch. I thought we deserved to win and I don’t think they caused us any sort of problems at all second half. The pleasing thing for me is the clean sheet, we never really looked like conceding, we kept our concentration and focus and then we managed to get a goal at the end which is great.”
It’s still difficult but you’re still around and alive and kicking?
“This squad is capable of going on long winning runs and this is the first of eight cup finals we had left. We’ve got seven more to go and teams are going to drop points unexpectedly.
"That’s just the nature of the league and the competition and today we’ve got an important goal and an important three points and things look a little bit better than what they did last week, but we’ve got loads of hard work to do.
"The pleasing thing for me is the win today and the manner of it and our attitude to keep going until the very last whistle.”
