Crawley Town 'lacked that little bit of quality' against Charlton, says Elliot

It was a fairly equal first half between the sides but Crawley found themselves behind at the break after Thierry Small was on the receiving end of a low cross into the box and snuck his effort into the bottom corner.

At the start of the second half, Charlton looked to double their advantage with chance after chance but Crawley defended well and managed to keep the score within touching distance.

Reds did get back into the game after a tough spell and put plenty of crosses into the box but the vital finishing touch was missing which meant that Crawley fell to a narrow defeat in a fairly even contest against the Addicks.

And Elliot said he felt his side deserved something. “Disappointing. I felt we deserved something more from the game, especially the way we pushed towards the end,” he said.

"It just didn't fall for us. It was a poor goal to concede. Charlton step on you man for man, so it's a real physical battle. I thought the lads were exceptional in terms of dealing with it. It's just disappointing in terms of the moment of quality.

“We could have had opportunities to really hurt them and open them up, but obviously that's why they're the leanest team in the league. They don't concede many, you can see why. They were really aggressive high up the pitch and defended huge numbers underneath it.”

And Ell;iot said he felt the players’ pain at losing in the dressing room. “It's really disappointing. The lads are gutted because they've given absolutely everything for the second game in a row. We just weren't able to get that final bit of quality in the box for it to fall for us.

“Disappointing because I think their mentality going into the game and the way we dealt with their exceptional physicality for this level. I thought the lads were brilliant to a man, but I think we just lacked that little bit of quality in the final third. In the first half, we just panicked a little bit and played into their press a bit too much, which we talked about. That was disappointing, but in the second half, I thought we adjusted to it well.

“We got a foothold in the game and just didn't have that final third breakdown to be able to get the goal.

“A bit of a scrappy affair. A lot of loose balls that we were actually picking up really well for large parts of the game.”