STEPHEN Crainey admitted Wanderers were not at their best in beating Burton Albion – but he remains pleased that they could continue their upward trajectory in the table.

The assistant boss spoke to local media after a 2-1 win, which came courtesy of second-half goals from Aaron Collins and Randell Williams.

The Whites climbed to 11th in the table with what proved a patchy performance but Crainey felt the result was all-important on the day.

“I’m delighted to win the game, obviously, but we can play better,” he said. “We demand better as well and I think we will play better, moving forward, but it is nice to win games of football and we did that today.

“I thought the first 10-15 minutes we started well, good high-intensity to our play, had a couple of chances within that but you have to take those in games of football, otherwise you let teams back into it. We need to sustain that pressure for 90 minutes, not just 20. It’s something we aspire to do.

“That’s us won four out of five now, which is good, we’ve got Birmingham and Peterborough this week. St Andrews on Tuesday will be tough, we know that, but we have got a good squad here and we’ll give a good account of ourselves.”

Serving the first of his three-match ban, Ian Evatt watched the game from the TV gantry and communicated with his staff on the bench via a radio.

Asked if the Bolton boss had given him “ear-ache” during some of the more dramatic spells of the match, Crainey laughed: “Not at all. He was quite calm and controlled.

“It isn’t ideal the manager not being at the side but sometimes it happens in football, you have to adjust and adapt and that is what we did today. I was just delighted to win the game.

“He can speak before the game, at half time and then after the game. I was on the radio to him, so was Pete, so we got clear communication there and made it work.”

Wanderers go to league leaders Birmingham on Tuesday night with Crainey and Atherton in charge on the touchline.

“Naturally the manager leads from the front but me and Pete needed to do it today,” Crainey said. “The manager misses the next two and then he’ll be back at the side leading the team but for the next two me and Pete will have to do it. The manager will have his say, we’ll have communication with him, whatever he says goes.”