Boss delighted that the Alex showed the moment of true quality to win Saturday's game at Northampton.

David Artell was pleased that his Crewe Alexandra side were able to produce the moment of real quality to make sure we won Saturday’s tough game at Northampton. Luke Murphy’s sublime pass was dispatched brilliantly by Owen Dale with 14 minutes left on the clock and Crewe intelligently saw out the final passage of the game.

The 1-0 win saw us bounce back from the disappointment of losing 3-0 to Burton the weekend before and saw us surpass the 50 point mark with 10 games remaining of the season.

Artell told the club’s official website: “We produced that real moment of quality to win the game. I think we showed two moments in the whole game and fell asleep once for their chance but I thought we deserved to win.

“It was a case of getting the job done on a tricky pitch. We had to plan for that and although it wasn’t a attractive performance, it was an effective one. Sometimes, the winning philosophy is the best philosophy and we did that.

He added: “We have to play a different way and it will go down in the record books as a 1-0 win to us. I think that we had to do the ugly side of the game and allow that moment of real quality to come through and it did and that is down the quality of our players.

“They are the ones who deserve the credit for it.”