Saturday’s goalscorer Aaron Taylor-Sinclair said he would have gladly sacrificed his first goal since November 2015 for the three points against Cheltenham Town.

The on-loan Motherwell left-back opened the scoring for the Railwaymen with a moment of pure persistence and tidy finish, but it all fell apart for Crewe after we conceded just before half-time and then had our captain, George Ray, sent off just minutes into the second half for a rash challenge on Kevin Dawson.

It left Crewe with 10 men for the majority of the second half and further goals from Billy Waters and Luke Varney inflicted a rare home defeat on Crewe.

Aaron told the club’s official website: “It was good to score my first goal in a few years but I would have happily swapped that for the win. It was disappointing to lose the game like we did.

“We didn’t deal with going down to ten men as well as we could and as the manager said afterwards we probably are not used to it here. The players haven’t had to deal with that too much because I don’t think we have had another player sent-off this season.

“Now we can only look forward to Saturday. It’s a big game and I’ve been told all about how much it means to the fans, so it is something to look forward to.

“I know it’s a big pitch at Vale, I’ve played there once before for Doncaster and I’m sure that will suit us because we want to get the ball down and play and there should be more space.

Aaron added: “It was great to win at Mansfield recently, so it would be nice to get another one on the board.”