Billy relishing the challenge of holding onto his shirt in the Alex midfield.

A fit-again Billy Bingham is relishing the challenge of holding on to his shirt with competition fierce in the Alex midfield. Bingham returned from a nine week absence because of a hamstring injury to face Bradford City last week. The 25-year-old completed 70 minutes before he began to tire and was replaced by Chris Atkinson.

Crewe boss Steve Davis was delighted to have his summer signing back from injury and didn’t want to risk injury as he began to fatigue at Valley Parade.

Bingham, who first suffered the hamstring injury away at Wigan back in August, suffered a relapse in his recovery which only extended his absence, but the former Dagenham man is now fit and ready to battle it with his four other team-mates for those midfield positions.

Billy told crewealex.net: “The competition is really good here. There are five of us battling for two or three positions and I know that whoever the manager picks will do a job for the team.

“It is healthy competition and it is good to work under that sort of pressure. I think it improves performances because you know that someone is waiting to take your place, if you do not play as well as you can or the manager wants.

“There are a lot of talented players at Crewe and you have to become as consistent as you can be to remain in the team. It is a blow to lose Foxy (Dave Fox) but it seems when we lose one, we get another one back from injury, so that helps us.”