Dario Gradi couldn't hide his pleasure in his team's all-round performance as they knocked Championship side Derby County out of the Carling Cup. Crewe worked tirelessly all night to keep Derby at bay and create chances of their own. In a keenly fought affair, it took a Shaun Barker own goal in first half stoppage time to decide the tie.

After a hard fought and deserved 1-0 victory, the Alex boss told crewealex.net: "That's a terrific result. It was a good performance. We kept our shape well,  Neil (Baker) told me before the game how they might play so we planned accordingly. We kept to it and everyone did their jobs well tonight. We did give them too much space in the first half though.

"Rhys Taylor looked good. He didn't have to do anything too flash but he did make some good saves and those he did make he did with quality. So he was good and that's important.

"The performance didn't change too much from Saturday. I thought we played well on Saturday, there was some good football and I've told them their football is in them now it would take someone ruthless to take that away from them.

"I want to be saying though that we can score from set plays and we are making chances but it is that winning mentality. We need to try and turn that winning football into winning games.

"We did create more chances than they did, we hit the post, and we edged it, we didn't murder them, but we edged it."