'Completely unique' - Crawley Town forwards says Scott Lindsey's playing style fits him perfectly

The 28-year-old has had a fairly quiet start to his Crawley Town career, having only scored two goals in 16 appearances, one in the league and one in the EFL Cup defeat to Swansea, but he seems happy with the way things are going so far.

Talking after the Vertu Trophy defeat to Peterborough, Tshimanga said: “It’s been quite interesting, to be fair, from the start. The style of play is completely unique, different to what a lot of League Two teams play like. But I think for me personally, it fits me perfectly.

“I like to make clever runs in behind the defence. I like to be a threat, and I feel like it suits me. I think it’s taken quite a bit of time ion terms of for it to gel and click, but I think it’s coming, it’s starting to show.

" And I feel like today, more so, it showed out there in terms of my movement and players finding me. I think from now until the end of the season, I think it’s going to be quite positive.”

Tshimanga has had a difficult time at Crawley so far, only starting nine league games so far, having come on as a substitute in four other games but he feels that he has not had a lot of luck. Tshimanga said: “I think that’s been quite weird, but you know what you’re going to get with these officials. It’s one of those ones as players that you just got to get on with it.

“I’ve still got to apply myself, even though that I’m not getting the luck of the draw in terms of in front of goal, I’ve still got to work hard. I’ve still got to show myself and be there for the boys. And, you know, things will turn. Obviously, you know that you can’t stay like that forever. Eventually it’s going to click, and I’ll back myself 100% to do well at this club.”

There’s plenty of competition for the striker role in the team with Harry McKirdy, Louis Flower and Ryan Loft all vying for a spot on the team, but that doesn’t faze Tshimanga.

He said: “It spurs me on as a player, to be fair, to sort of be always at it in terms of training, in terms of games. You know that, not that you’re looking over your shoulder, but you know that you’ve got to take as much of an opportunity as you can. So, I think it’s healthy. It’s good for us.

“And it keeps all of us ticking over, making sure that we’re really pushing each other to be the best that we can every day, whether that’s training, whether that’s game time. And I think, you know, it’s going to show out there. It hasn’t as much in terms of the numbers. I think it’s been quite frustrating in terms of the numbers for me, and I think a few of the boys up front might say the same. But I think it’s a healthy competition, and I think that’s going to push all of us on from now until the end of the season.”

With a whole host of new signings at the start of the season, of which Tshimanga was one, it has taken some time to start gelling. However, Tshimanga thinks this team can go ‘very, very far’. He said: “I think the start of the season hasn’t quite shown that, but I thought we’ve dominated a lot of games. We’ve played quite well. We just haven’t had the luck of results in terms of decisions and things like that haven’t gone our way. I think we’ve done quite well recently.

“I think it’s about picking it up and continuing. But the squad’s very, very good. As you saw out there, the squad’s very, very strong. Everyone’s competing for competition. And I think we’ve still got a long way to go. But there’s definitely a lot of strong boys out there who’s showing a good candidate for the gaffer.”