Crawley Town boss backs himself following departure of promotion-winning players and rebuilding new squad

Fans were left frustrated and bemused as they watched the majority of last season’s promotion squad - including eight of the Wembley starting line-up - leave.

Chairman and CEO Preston Johnson said it was down the club’s revenue model - along with contractual agreements that were out of the club’s hands.

This happened the previous summer as well, but the big difference this summer is that it has followed a season full of achievement.

But one person we haven’t heard from about the squad rebuild is manager Scott Lindsey.

And on Monday at the Fans Forum, one fan asked Johnson: “With all the changes in personnel, a concern of a lot of fans was Scott content or was he cursing under all of this? I wonder how he feels with his team being dismantled. He has got to start again and it must have been galling for him?”

Johnson’s answer was: “I can honestly say the one thing Scott is great at is his confidence and belief in his system and the way he wants to play and the way he coaches and there hasn’t been, and I am being truthfully honest, any kind of outburst my way on the state of the outburst.”

SEE ALSO Watch as Crawley boss Scott Lindsey looks ahead to League One season opener against Blackpool | Crawley Town announce squad numbers ahead of League One campaign | Crawley Town fans delighted as former Ipswich and Plymouth striker returns for second stint

During pre-season Scott has said he is relishing the opportunity to rebuild the squad and mould new players into his style of playing.

And in the press conference for the Blackpool game, we asked him how he felt during that period where he saw players like Will Wright, Nick Tsaroulla, Danilo Orsi, Liam Kelly and others leave.

He told us: “You have relationships with these players and noone wants to see good people walk out of the door but sometimes those situations are out of your control and out of the club’s control because if they are being offered more money there’s not much you can do.

“But what I do know is that I back myself as a coach, I enjoy doing my job, I enjoy working with fresh talents the owners have worked hard to find and piecing that together and coaching them to try and play my way.

“I am really excited about that. But like I say, we have to be patient with it because we are probably not going to see a team with complete cohesion straight away but hopefully with hard work on the training ground we will get there eventually.”

Reds face Blackpool in the League One season opener at the Broadfield Stadium on Saturday, 5.30pm.