'Genuinely upset' - Crawley Town boss reveals Jay Williams' gesture after horror tackle on Brighton's new £25million signing

The Reds boss also said the 23-year-old is ‘genuinely upset’ by the result of his tackle.

It was just six minutes into the Carabao Cup second round tie when a late Williams tackle meant O’Riley, who Brighton just signed from Celtic, had to be carried off.

It’s since been revealed he needs ankle surgery. Seagulls boss Fabian Hurzeler said in this morning’s press conference ahead of the Arsenal game: “It's a bad injury. He needs surgery on his ankle. I can't say how long we expect him to be out. It's a tough one for us. We are trying to support him as best as we can. Let's hope he will be back soon."

When asked if he thought his side were a little aggressive in his post-match press conference, Lindsey said: “Maybe were but we didn’t mean to be and we apologise if we kicked any of their players.”

But since then fans have taken to social media to criticise Williams and Crawley for their ‘thuggery’.

And today, nearly 48 hours after the incident, we asked Lindsey for his thoughts on the incident after having time to watch it back and reflect on it.

He said: “I think that the referee's decision to do nothing about it has made it a whole lot worse. There should have been something done, whether that was a yellow or a red remains to be seen. I think that's kind of not made it any better.

“In my opinion, it was a genuine attempt to win the ball. If you look at him, his eyes are fixated on the ball the whole time and he mis-timed it. It’s as simple as that, it happens, he mis-timed it, the kid got there slightly in front and poked it ​​​​​and it's unfortunate.

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"We obviously don't want the boy to be hurt or injured. That's not what we want, and it's not what Jay wants. If you watch the footage back, as the boy is getting treatment, Jay stood over him making sure he's alright and if there was any malice in what Jay did, then he certainly won't be standing over him to make sure he's alright. It's an unfortunate situation, and we're really sorry that it happened, but it was a genuine attempt to win the ball in my opinion.

"It wasn't a great tackle. I'm not sitting here saying it was a great tackle because it wasn't. It was a bad tackle. That's really clear, but it was a genuine attempt to win the ball and like I say, if the referee would have done his job properly, it would have been a little bit calmer than it then ended up being.”

And Lindsey said he has spoke to Jay about the situation. “I poke to Jay yesterday and he’s genuinely upset about it, he’s a really good kid. He's done really well for this football club. He was the first to try and find out how the boy was afterwards, and he wanted to have some of their coaching staff's phone numbers afterwards to apologise. That just shows the measure of the kid.

"So listen, it's really unfortunate, we're really sorry it happened, but we've just got to try and make sure the we protect our player as well in terms of the stick that he has got.”