Crawley Town hoping to turn fine displays into wins - and double their TV exposure

Manager John Yems was full of praise for his players as they came from behind to earn a point at the Peninsula Stadium on Saturday against a Salford side many fancy for promotion. The Reds aim to build on it at home to 16th-placed Tranmere this evening (Tues).

With Roy Keane among the few watching as the Manchester United Class of 92's club were held by Yems' men, James Wilson’s second-half strike gave Salford City the lead before Reds skipper George Francomb fired in his third goal of the season to earn Crawley a decent point away from home. It came four days after they'd lost 2-1 at Exeter despite leading 1-0 with 13 minutes to go and looking good for the win.

Yems was pleased with a point against Salford, who are eighth and will be looking for promotion to League One this season: “Absolutely fantastic," he said. "We went 1-0 down, but what character to come back here, and I think at the end they were hanging on."

Was Yems a little disappointed not to have won? “I’ve been in football a long time. Never get disappointed with a point, we could’ve had three, could’ve had nothing so we take the point away from home.," he said.

Crawley’s new loan signing Jake Hesketh made his full debut, having signed from Southampton, and Yems hopes he will be fully match fit soon after an impressive display: “He’s got to get himself fit, he hasn’t played but I’d rather the boy having a good half than a bad 90 (minutes), but everybody, top to bottom, was fantastic.”

Another Reds player getting to full fitness is striker Max Watters, who did well at Saflord in a result that left Crawley 13th in the table but only three points off the play-off zone.

Trio give fans cause for optimism.

“It’s all a learning curve for him," Yems said. "Hopefully we’ll build on this. I keep saying about people getting behind us and everything, it’s another learning curve, because you don’t go to these places on the back of what’s gone on in the last week or so with the Exeter result, because we should’ve got something there, but we didn’t, we move on, we earn something today.

"It's good that people are saying we were unlucky. You don’t get anything being unlucky, though so we have to start ‘getting the luck’ if we want it to go our way.”

Yems was pleased with how Crawley matched the promotion-seeking Salford side on their own patch: “They’ve got some good players as we all know, , but it’s a compliment. I think it was a good game of football, it could’ve gone either way, it was played in the right spirit. I don't think there was any malicious stuff. If that’s an advert for our division I think it might get 30 seconds on Quest rather than the usual 15!”

Crawley are in action again tonight as they take on Tranmere at the People’s Pension Stadium and midfielder Sam Matthews says it's another chance to show their progress.

He said of the draw at Salford: "It was a good result - the boys grew into the game and gave a good account of ourselves and matched them all over the pitch. If anything, with 15 or 20 minutes to go, they were on the ropes and we were pushing trying to get the winner. If anything we're a little disappointed we couldn't nick the game at the end, but it's a good point and a good performance."

Matthews feels his own performances are improving. "I feel like I've got a lot to come. I really pleased I'm managing to put some 90 minutes together. I've strung a few performances together and managed to stay fit and stay in the team which is great.

"I hope I'll get better and better the more I play and have an impact on the team as much as I can."

Matthews says confidence is high in the camp ahead of the Tranmere clash tonight (Tues) and Saturday's home tussle with Cambridge, who are second in the early table.

"We've got a really good team spirit and unity between us and there are some good partnerships coming out on the pitch," Matthews said. "We have a nice balance to us and all the boys work really hard and we know our jobs and are putting in a good shift for each other.

"The boys have been saying we've come up against two sides you'd probably expect to be up there this season (Exeter and Crawley). We probably should have won Tuesday night and could have won the game at Salford. They're good signs but we need to keep pushing and improving. we need to turn draws into wins."