Crewe have given themselves a chance of making the play-offs according to Dave Artell who labelled his side’s 1-0 win at Shrewsbury Town a “proper away performance”.

Owen Dale’s 27th-minute goal settled a tight affair at the Montgomery Waters Meadow, and put Crewe level on points with Sunderland who occupy the final play off spot.

Artell said: “Shrewsbury are a really, really, really difficult side to beat, they’ve beaten some top sides in the last few weeks since Steve Cotterill has come in.

“We knew it would be a tough game and so it proved. I’ve just said to Aaron (Wilbraham) and Brian (Caldwell) that they’ve got a real good group here that will run through a brick wall for them, and so it proved tonight.

“Our boys stepped up and we said yesterday that it won’t be pretty and if you can play then try and play. But we said it will be a dogged and turgid affair and that is how it went and how it was at times.

“We could have been behind after 40 seconds and we got away with it. We matched them for endeavour and work rate and you have to do that. We got our noses in front and defended well, and it was a proper away performance, a proper away performance.

“There are 20 odd games to go. If we win all 20 we are in the play-off mix, but if we lose 20 then we aren’t. We have given ourselves a chance, so let’s see how the next 20 odd games go.”

Shrewsbury stand-in boss Wilbraham was left frustrated by an uncharacteristic error that led to the game’s only goal.

He said: “It was frustrating as we conceded a sloppy goal and it is a goal we don’t usually concede. We did everything to get back into the game and we had the chances and I think we at least deserved a point.

“We maybe need to do a bit better and learn from that as a group, because we gave them a leg up in the game and then we were against the odds.

“We almost got an early goal, it was a great run from Chappy (Harry Chapman) and you would have fancied him to score that on the back of two on Saturday.

“He did the right thing, he was just unlucky in the end, but if that goes in it is a different story. I’m happy with what I saw but we didn’t get the result so you are left a bit frustrated.

“We can take bits from it. We have been good at the back and I thought we did well at the back for most of tonight.”