Crawley Town opinion: Six goals but no rewards for Reds

I should have known it was going to be a strange night when a steward asked me if I knew where I was going. We didn’t concede early and looked as if we could go on and cement our place in the knockout rounds, but then, just as the first half was coming to a close, we left Maycock unmarked at the far post and, despite having most of the first half possession, went in one goal down.In goal was emergency loan keeper, Connal Trueman from Millwall, who played really well throughout and was not at fault for any of the goals.

Unbelievably, within twelve minutes of the second half starting, we found ourselves three goals down, again through defensive errors, with the goals coming from Stevens and James (you may have heard of him) Tilley.

It seemed as though we were in for a terrible evening and an embarrassing result but then we hit a purple patch of our own between the 71st and 87th minutes when Ronan Darcy scored via a penalty after Armando Quitirna was pushed to the ground, followed by a header from Rushian Hepburn-Murphy and a shot from Josh Flint which brought us level. Rushian had already had one header ruled out for offside and just as we were thinking about which end the penalties would be taken, Joe Piggott hit the winner for AFC in the 96th minute. A gutting result against one of our closest rivals but with nine changes being made from the team that narrowly lost at Wycombe there were definitely positive aspects to be appreciated by the crowd of just under 1500 including 400 odd, making their way south from Plough Lane.

Positives: not conceding early in the first half plus the effort put in by the team to comeback from three down. The positive attitude and respect shown by the supporters to the team throughout the game and at the final whistle.

And then there was Saturday!! More sloppy goals conceded, or should that be saloppy but once again three goals scored at home. The questionmustbe asked, how do you score six goals at home over two games and not gain any points? I don’t believe that Connal Truman was in any way to blame for the two defeats and neither do I think it was down to a lack of effort from the players on the pitch. I watched Robbie’s after match interview and most of it I agreed with, but either the question wasn’t asked, or it was edited out. Why did we make the substitutions when we did and why remove the most effective players? Removing Junior and Darcy just after we had taken the lead for the first time seemed to revitalise the away side more than us and must have left Junior wondering “Why me?” after having scored and celebrated in the way he did.

I am not the manager, and neither are the other spectators who shared my point of view but then we made another three substitutions eight minutes later when facing a corner which we duly conceded from. Perhaps an admission in the post-match interview that Robbie himself had made a mistake would have done him more credit than simply applauding the fans who were there to the very end. That brings me to my final point, how does it help the team for the “twelfth man” to leave the action with 15 minutes to go? Just saying!

Think on people, and let’s get behind the Devils at Reading on Saturday.