Gareth Ainsworth admitted he had mixed emotions after his Wycombe side dropped two points in a 3-3 draw at Fleetwood

The visitors had led 3-1 early in the second half, Sam Vokes adding to first-half goals from Brandon Hanlan and Adebayo Akinfenwa, but Fleetwood struck back to score twice in the space of four minutes to deny their visitors a sixth win in seven league games.

“I’m disappointed to only get a point,” admitted Ainsworth, whose side slipped a place to third following the draw. “It’s away from home so it’s a good point against a team that’s had some decent results against good teams.

“But we were 3-1 up and you want to see the game out from there. I thought we were doing that but then Simon Grayson has made three substitutions, he’s gone for it and you have to give him credit for that. He’s put them on and before we could get to grips with things they’re back in the game.

“I don’t care about formations, you have to defend corners better than we did and that’s given them the momentum and the third goal was well taken but we were a little bit stretched and hadn’t got to grips with what they’d done.

“After that it was like a basketball game and it could have gone either way. We’ve dropped two points but at the same time we’re pleased that we’ve come away with one.”

It had been a scintillating encounter and one that neither side deserved to walk away from empty-handed.

Fleetwood boss Grayson paid tribute to his side’s attitude to fight back, with substitutes Joe Garner and Shayden Morris – returning from injury for his first game since August – both scoring shortly after coming on, adding to Danny Andrew’s fifth-minute opener.

“It was certainly some game. It had everything and I’m not just talking about the game, I mean the conditions as well,” said Grayson at the end of an afternoon of howling wind, bright sunshine, driving rain and hail.

“It was one of those where you knew how Wycombe would play, we knew they’d be aggressive and get the ball forward and look for second balls, and you have to deal with that.

“For large parts of the game we did but when we didn’t they capitalised on it. It was disappointing to be behind after going a goal up early in the game but full credit to the team for the way they kept going.

“We could have dealt with their direct play to the big lads up front a bit better but we responded well and we were asking more questions of them in the second half than they were of us.

“We’ve come back from many losing positions to draw, or even win, games and that’s testament to my players’ desire, hunger and resilience not to give up the fight. You want your subs to make an impact and all three of them certainly did.”