Lee Bell and Mickey Demetriou reserved special praise for Lewis Billington after Crewe Alexandra’s super FA Cup victory at Derby County.

The 19-year-old, making just his sixth first-team start, made an early mistake which led to the Rams' opening goal.

But the homegrown defender showed excellent mental strength to quickly recover and go on to deliver an outstanding performance in the 3-1 success at Pride Park.

Afterwards, Manager Bell said: “Billo was excellent. He was brave to take the ball early on but a mistake happened and I was extremely delighted with how he responded.

“He carried on with his game and showed real courage. He has to keep on doing what he is doing – keep on learning from the good players around him and improving himself.”

Demetriou, who played alongside Billington in a three-man defence, added: “We are going to make mistakes because we play out from the back.

“It happened to me a couple of weeks ago against Stockport and it happened to Billo at Derby but he didn’t let that faze him, he was outstanding. Full credit to him for the way he bounced back.”