David Artell felt that Charlie Kirk’s dramatic equaliser was coming as his Crewe Alexandra side once again showed some great character to salvage a point from yesterday’s local derby with Port Vale.
Crewe were gifted an early lead at Gresty Road after the Port Vale goalkeeper Ryan Boot made a horrendous mistake in allowing James Jones’ free-kick to slip from his grasp and Ryan Wintle was there to easily nod home into an empty net.
Port Vale levelled before half-time via a well struck penalty from their skipper Tom Pope and they took the lead with 20 minutes left through a quite wonderful strike from Anthony Kay, but Crewe continued to press and the introduction of fresh legs helped us find that equaliser in the 93rd minute.
Kirk produced a sublime finish following a pass from his captain George Ray to spark wild scenes of celebrations at Gresty Road.
David Artell told the club’s official website: “We made a mistake for the penalty and it was a pen so there are no complaints there. I thought the referee handled the game really well.
“They have then scored a screamer from 30 yards and other than that I cannot remember them having too many chances. They didn’t threaten our goal all that much.
“What we have shown as a team over the last few weeks or couple of months, is that we have some character. When you go into injury time, you would take anything but it is great credit to the lads that they kept on going and kept on believing because we have missed some decent chances and their substitute goalkeeper has made some top drawer saves as well.
Artell added: “It is great credit to our lads but I felt it was coming. We kept on probing and asking them questions defensively and in the end we got what we deserved because I thought that we were the better team on the day.”