Lee Bell feels his Crewe side were ‘worthy winners’ at Harrogate

Lee Bell felt his Crewe side were “worthy winners” of Monday night’s League Two clash with Harrogate.

The Railwaymen left it late to secure all three points at Wetherby Road, Max Sanders’ deflected 87th-minute strike sealing a 2-1 victory which lifted them to fifth place in the table.

But, in truth, the visitors dominated large periods of the game and had plenty of chances to have netted a second goal after Reece Hutchinson had cancelled out Jack Muldoon’s early opener.

And Bell was full of praise for how his young team went on to recover from that setback to take the spoils.

“Overall, I thought that we were worthy winners,” he said.

“It obviously was not the plan to go a goal down after five minutes, but it was a good little hurdle for the group to have to get over, bouncing back to win a game away from home.

“We’ve got a really young group and tonight we had nine players aged 21 and under, and resilience is something that they have got to develop if they want to achieve anything, as well as sticking to a game plan.

“It’s about finding a level of consistency. But there are definitely things to build on. I enjoyed watching many of the players out there tonight expressing themselves, though we have got to be scoring more goals.”

Veteran Harrogate striker Muldoon broke the deadlock when he nodded home Reece Smith’s left-wing cross, though Crewe levelled matters through Hutchinson’s clever, dinked finish from Tommi O’Reilly’s 29th-minute corner.

“It’s a great finish,” Bell said of Hutchinson’s equaliser. “It’s quite a clever finish. He’s not tried to absolutely lace it, he’s given everybody a chance thinking that there might be somebody at the far post, which there was.

“It’s a well-worked set-piece.”

Having restored parity, Crewe visibly grew in confidence and remained largely in the ascendancy from that point onwards.

Substitute Jack Lankester twice went close to giving them the lead, while Josh March lashed a strike into the side-netting and Emre Tezgel saw an effort cleared off the goal-line.

Eventually, Sanders was given the freedom of Harrogate to drive unopposed towards the edge of the home box, where he curled an effort beyond the dive of James Belshaw with the aid of a touch off the head of Anthony O’Connor.

And Sulphurites boss Simon Weaver was left to rue the lack of pressure his players applied to the man on the ball during what proved to be the match’s deciding moment.

“Unfortunately, we have parted like the Red Sea for the winning goal,” he said.

“We’ve not had the required intensity for one minute, and that is what has cost us.”