Crawley Town boss compares EFL Trophy match to 'training day' and praises former Arsenal youngster

Crawley Town fell to a narrow 2-1 defeat to Wycombe Wanderers in the EFL trophy which sees Crawley bow out of the tournament in the group stage. Despite a defeat against the current League One leaders, Reds manager Elliot thought it was a good performance from his injury-riddled side.

The hosts opened the scoring inside three minutes through Brandon Hanlon who escaped his man before tucking his tidy finish into the bottom left hand corner.

Tola Showunmi tapped a deflected long range strike by Jack Roles into an empty net ten minutes later to equalise and then Luke Leahy put Wycombe in the lead once again with an incredible free kick from just outside the box.

The second half had much less goal-mouth action than the first with neither side having carved out any particularly dangerous chances.

In the 53rd minute Connel Trueman brilliantly denied Leahy from the spot to keep the Reds hopes of a comeback alive but it wasn’t to be as The Chairboys held firm in order to progress into the knockouts.

Speaking on the performance, Elliot said: “Overall I thought it was good, I thought we controlled the ball well, had good patterns and obviously at the end they're hanging on but we couldn't get the equaliser.

“It was good to get obviously Tyreese (John-Jules) on the pitch and get minutes for lads who've been out for a while.I t’s frustrating that we're conceding goals that are a consistent pattern, a set piece again and we need to make sure we manage them moments better.

“Obviously we have pretty much everyone here who is available, if that makes sense, so we know we're at the bare bones but you can see things coming together and I thought overall we dictated the play.

“In the first half we had two or three good chances where if we put them away I think it's a different game but it wasn't quite our night tonight but lots of pleasing things and I think there's loads to work on from it.”

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Reds defeat to Wycombe means that they are unable to progress to the knockout stages of the competition but Elliot is not too bothered by this and is already looking ahead to next season where he hopes his side are in a better position.

“It's a great competition if you get through to the final stage but for us at this moment in time, with the squad depth for where we are, there's pros and cons to everything,” he said. “I think the most important thing is everyone come through unscathed tonight. We've got Ty on the pitch and I thought overall it was a good performance.

“Maybe next season, when we're in a bit of a stronger position we can challenge, However, it's probably a good training day. It gives lads minutes who needed it. Because there were lads that needed it. Lads who haven't been able to get as many minutes.”

Former Arsenal strikerJ ohn-Jules signed earlier in the season and had yet to be involved in a matchday squad until now due to injuries but showed why he was signed with a positive cameo debut appearance when he came on in the 67th minute.

Elliot praised the midfielder’s performance and spoke about the next steps for the youngster. He said: “it was brilliant. He's worked so well behind the scenes. He's had a really tough time and he's such a lovely lad. This is part of his rehab. This isn't him back fit and fresh.

“We need to make sure that in the next few days he's right and ready. It was a good glimpse to see what he's going to be able to bring to us, his pace, his power, some of his passing was excellent and I was really pleased with him tonight.

“Let's just hope this is a turning tide in the fact that we're starting to get good players back on the pitch rather than the other way, which we've been a bit unfortunate with recently.”