Town boss Joe Royle was disappointed not to get three points at Crewe, even after going two goals down to the Railwaymen. Royle felt that striker Dean Ashton may have been offside on both the homes side's goals.

The Town manager said: "Two points lost. I don't know how we were behind at half-time, to be honest.

"Television will confirm or not confirm my opinion that both goals were borderline offside and we've missed four or five chances that we would have put away with some appendage of our bodies.

"In the second half, it was one-way traffic and our goalkeeper was redundant. It was a great comeback and the second half was a great display of in-your-face passing football.

"You can see it either way and I won't argue. If you're two goals down on foreign soil and you come back, it's a great revival. If you miss enough chances to win three games, then it's two points lost, which we did, and I don't think even Dario will argue with that."

Royle again picked first goalscorer Richard Naylor as his man of the match: "Richard Naylor was outstanding. Bam Bam remembered what to do in the box. It was a throwback.

"Even at half-time, it's hard to know what to say when you're two goals behind and you don't deserve to be. But we came back strong and we only talked about winning the game at half-time."

Crewe manager Dario Gradi felt the match was a microcosm of their entire season: "That's Crewe in a nutshell. We played some super football in the first half, scored two good goals, opened them up well and played some fine football.

"We still gave them chances and again it was individuals at the back. We knew two goals weren't necessarily going to be enough."

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