Not even a nightmare journey to Cumbria could stop Gareth Ainsworth and his Wanderers team from taking all three points against Carlisle at Brunton Park on Saturday.

A blowout to the team bus and a four car pile-up on the M40 meant it took Blues ten and a half hours to reach their hotel after leaving Buckinghamshire at 11am on Friday.

But goals from Aaron Pierre, Fred Onyedinma and Matt McClure ensured Ainsworth and his team would be enjoying the trip back south rather more than their outbound journey.

He said: “This morning we made sure everything was put right with the meetings, with the way we spoke before the game in the dressing room and the team selection has been justified.

“It’s a good result. I think 3-2 is a little bit closer than it actually was. If you’d have been here, we could have had five or six quite easily for the want of sticking the ball in the net which has been a problem but three goals today has put that to bed.”

Blues looked to have the win wrapped up when McClure – who netted for the first time since the 4-1 victory against Southend in December – arrowed a superb shot into the far corner of the goal after 65 minutes.

But they were made to sweat for their ninth away win of the season when Kyle Dempsey and a hotly disputed penalty from Danny Grainger with eight minutes to go ensured the fingernails of the 186 travelling fans would be chewed to their ends.

Ainsworth said: “I think Carlisle and the referee have made a real good game of it at the end. I don’t want to get in trouble for saying things like that.

“I think the centre-forward for Carlisle has been cute and almost conned the referee, which is not nice for the referee because it’s a difficult job in there without people stopping suddenly in the box and hoping someone runs into the back of them which is exactly what happened.

“They took their chance well, but 3-2 probably paints a slightly different picture on the game than what was here today. We created many, many chances and we restricted Carlisle to few.

“It’s a real positive for me the performance, the way we’ve dealt with a bit of adversity yesterday and got points towards our promotion push.”

After stating publicly in midweek his intentions to win promotion this season, Ainsworth received the perfect performance to back-up his ambitious designs.

Results elsewhere also fell in Blues’ favour, leaving Wanderers four points clear of Luton in fourth as they look to stay in the automatic promotion spots.

Ainsworth felt the attacking intent showed by his team had the hallmarks of a League One team in the making and signalled his attention to stick with an offensive style of play.

“I think going forward we created many, many chances – it’s what you’ve got to do to get into League One,” he said.

“You’ve got to score goals and win games. I’ve said publicly that I’m going to take risks, and I think the attacking, expansive football that we play is going to leave us exposed sometimes, but it’s great to go forward and play like we did today.”