Davis delight as resolute Crewe record first league points of the season
Steve Davis was delighted that his Crewe Alexandra side recorded their first league win of the season following a hard fought victory over Port Vale this evening. A great start from the Railwaymen saw us race into a 2-0 lead before the twenty minute mark thanks to goals from George Ray and Vadaine Oliver.
Port Vale got back into the game through Jordan Slew, who needed two chances to convert his penalty after it was saved by Ben Garratt and although the visitors pressed in the second half looking for an equaliser, Crewe deservedly held on to claim those first points of the campaign.
After the game, Steve Davis told the club’s official web-site: “That first win has been a long time coming so I hope we can have a much better Saturday night and weekend. We haven’t had much good fortune this season but we had some in the second half today but I felt we deserved it after our first half performance.
“We could have scored more than the two we did score in the opening 20 minutes. We didn’t convert our chances, although we did score very good goals. We let them get back into and we were disappointed with that. I don’t know if it was a penalty or not, I will have to look at it again because it might have happened outside of the penalty area, but it is something George (Ray) will have to learn from.
“They upped the tempo in the second half and they deserve credit for their energy and determination. They threw everything at us and I thought it was a terrific game of football. It was real end-to-end stuff and to our credit we defended well under that pressure in the second half.
“Both sets of players gave everything out on the pitch and when a game is like that it is always nice to come out on top.
“We started really well and were good value for our lead. We could have scored three or four but I didn’t get too carried when we scored the second goal because there was a long way to go and we knew Vale would have a period in the game when they would be on top.
“We perhaps sat back a bit when we had that lead but we were really resilient today and all of our players put a shift in.
The boss added: “We went with two up front today with the big lads and had Billy operating in those pockets behind them. We were really positive about doing that all week and had a real go and these games are always difficult but when we had to stand up and be counted they all did.”