Salford manager Richie Wellens urged his team to be more ruthless in front of goal after their 1-0 win at Harrogate

Former Manchester United striker James Wilson’s first-half goal proved the difference as League Two’s meanest defence shut out their hosts.

But, despite bossing the game for long periods, Salford might have had to settle for a point had home centre-back Jake Lawlor, pushed upfield as an emergency striker at the death, hit the target with a stoppage-time header that bounced narrowly wide.

Wellens said: “Having the best defence in the division is not something I set out to be, because I want to be attacking and score goals. You have to give Harrogate a lot of credit for sticking at it and, in the end, they had a chance that their player headed just wide, which could have nicked them a point, but we should have been out of sight by then and killed the game off.

“We were pretty wasteful in the final third and we had quite a few chances that I thought we should have scored from. The one that we did was actually a great finish and one that I didn’t think he had any right to score from.

“But we know what Wilson’s all about with his quality. In the end, it was a good win on a newly-laid pitch that was a bit sandy and bobbly. At times, we played really well and there’s no point scoring three goals and conceding four so, even though we should have scored more in this game, we’ve got one and not conceded again to get the win.”

Wilson netted in the 17th minute when he ghosted past Lawlor through the left channel to collect Brandon Thomas-Asante’s lofted ball and drilled across goal into the bottom corner from 10 yards.

Home manager Simon Weaver was annoyed by the nature of the goal.

He said: “It was a tough one for the players to come away with nothing from, because they put an honest shift in and covered every blade of grass. Even a gritty 0-0 would have made it a good week after our win at Exeter, but poor goals are still going in and costing us.

“It’s not down to shape because people aren’t prising us open by going through us. We sorted that after the Scunthorpe debacle (a 5-2 defeat).

“It’s down to individuals switching off, whether that’s through freezing I don’t know – time will tell, but we’ve got to act quickly because it was down to hesitation, which you didn’t see in Salford’s team. They had to work hard to create chances, but they did not have to work hard for the goal – it should have been gobbled up defensively.

“At the other end, we were rushed. We did not have enough chances to score.”