Davis has had success in non-league football as manager of Nantwich Town

Assistant manager Steve Davis refused to take the credit for Crewe's 8-1 hammering of Cheltenham on Saturday.

Davis took charge of the Alex in the absence of boss Dario Gradi, who went home ill prior to kick-off.

"I'm not fooling myself by thinking that because Dario wasn't here, the result would have been any different," Davis told BBC Radio Stoke.

Clayton Donaldson and Joel Grant both scored hat-tricks as Crewe kept their faint hopes of the play-offs alive.

The Alex remain 12th in League Two, six points outside the top seven.

"The way we set up and the work we did in the week was good," said Davis. "We did a lot of work on finishing, which you can see paid dividends.

"They realise they've got to win every game and they went the right way about it, so we couldn't have asked for any more from them."

Shaun Miller and Ashley R Westwood also found the net for Crewe, who beat Barnet 7-0 in the opening month of the campaign.

Despite the margin of victory, Davis insisted there is still room for improvement.

"I'm going to enjoy watching the game again with Dario on Monday," added the former Nantwich Town manager. "I'm sure he'll pull me to bits on a few things, which is fine.

"A few things were wrong and I didn't probably deal with them, but what do you do when the team were flowing like they were?

"I said to them to play with freedom and they did that, they played without fear."

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