Crawley Town 0, Barnsley 3: Reds suffer defeat after disastrous first 45 minutes

Scott Lindsey made two changes to the side that lost to Wigan last weekend as Cameron Bragg and Panutche Camara came into the side in place of Ade Adeyemo and Armando Quitirna. New signing Will Swan made the bench.

It was a shaky start for Crawley who couldn’t keep hold of possession and the visitors almost took advantage inside two minutes when former Reds player Max Watters outpowered and outpaced Joy Mukena but his shot hit the post.

Watters caused problems early on for Reds defence but after a tussle with Mukena the forward went down injured and was soon replaced in the seventh minute for Aiden Marsh.

However the early substitution did not impact Barnsley and they soon had the lead. From a corner, Corey O’Keeffe put his cross into the far post where Donovan Pines was waiting to head it powerfully past Jojo Wollacott.

The lead almost doubled immediately through a well-worked move where O’Keeffe cut the ball back for Adam Phillips who smashed the post with his side-footed shot.

Reds were yet to make themselves a good opportunity and had been penned back by The Tykes who relentlessly came back at the Crawley defence with chance-after-chance.

Halfway through the first-half Barnsley had doubled their lead which left Reds with a huge mountain to climb. After a one-two with Luca Connell, Phillips was able to break free and comfortably slot it into the bottom right corner.

At the death of the half Barnsley extended their lead to three when Phillips scored his second of the afternoon from the spot.

In order to try and salvage something from the game, Lindsey looked to his bench and new signing Swan as well as Harry Forster who returned to the matchday squad for the first time since his injury came on at the start of the second half.

After having defended for long periods of the first half, Reds came out with some much needed energy and began to move the ball around nicely for the first time so far. Despite this start, Barnsley had two huge chances in the space of a minute. Firstly, Connell’s volley was saved brilliantly by Wollacott and then from the resulting corner, Mael De Gevigney headed just over the bar.

With Crawley having picked up their tempo, the gameplan for Barnsley changed to playing on the counter which caused problems for Reds, especially at corners when Forster was the last man back.

After a spell where the game slowed down completely, Jay Williams finally managed to have Crawley’s first shot of the game in the 84th minute which flew over the bar. Forster then sliced his shot wide of the post before Camara’s effort went straight at Gabriel Slonina which put an end to the action at the Broadfield Stadium.