Lee Bell praised the impact substitute Shilow Tracey made as Crewe upset League Two leaders MK Dons with a stirring second-half comeback.
Tracey set up Conor Thomas’ equaliser and also had an assist in Courtney Baker-Richardson’s close-range finish which turned the game on its head.
Jonathan Leko blasted Graham Alexander’s side ahead in the eighth minute, but Crewe were the better side after the break as they registered their second success of the campaign and inflicted a first defeat of the season on MK Dons.
Bell said: “MK Dons are a good team, but I felt we’d played okay in the first half when we’d put some good football together and we perhaps should have scored. But the message I gave to the players at half-time was that we couldn’t keep gifting goals.
“And we were very good in the second half, so I am delighted for the players as they worked very hard for that against a team bang in form and top of the league.
“But I feel we’ve got good players and we’ve brought in some good players in the last week which is going to help up us.
“I’ve never subbed a player whose just scored a goal (Conor Thomas), but we needed to get more on the front foot and Joe White did well when he came on.
“As did Shilow Tracey who had a massive impact on the game. Shilow needs to believe in himself as he is a game-changer. The type of performance he put in in the second half is what we want to see from him. I left him out and he perhaps wanted to prove a point to me.”
It had looked promising for the visitors when Leko followed up to crash home an angled drive.
But Crewe emerged as a force and Mickey Demetriou fired a rebound into the side netting after Tabiner’s effort was parried by Craig MacGillivray just before the hour.
The hosts were level minutes later when Thomas was picked out by Tracey and unleashed a low shot into the bottom corner. When MacGillivray could only push out another Tabiner effort, Baker-Richardson finished from close range (69).
Alexander’s side responded without real conviction, although Harvey Davies did well to keep out Max Dean’s effort from hitting the corner. But Chris Long sealed victory when he rifled into the corner in the last minute.
MK Dons boss Alexander says he has drafted in some experienced campaigners to maintain his side’s good start following a busy deadline week.
Defenders Joe Tomlinson and Anthony Stewart have been signed as well as midfielder Jack Payne and striker Ellis Harrison, with Payne and Tomlinson used off the bench in the second half at Gresty Road.
“I think we’ve got a real strong team as the points on the board suggest,” said Alexander. “But we’re delighted with our business we’ve done [in the transfer window]. It is players we know and it’s plug in and play really on the talent side but we have to see where they are fitness wise. We’ve got time now to put that work in place.”
On the game, Alexander said: “If you look at the first half then we should have gone on to win the game. Looking back at Crewe’s goals then it is really basic errors we’ve made there.
“I don’t think it was down to any individuals going missing, it was about not sticking to our principles after we’d done so well in the first half.”
