Crawley Town striker sums up the feeling around the club in two simple words after brilliant Lincoln City victory

At the point the 23-year-old joined, Crawley had won two league games and were hopeful of good season.

But shortly after he joined, manager Scott Lindsey, who would have been a big draw for the striker in coming to the Broadfield Stadium left to join MK Dons.

It did not affect Swan’s performances as the former Mansfield striker put in tireless performances but with no end product.

New manager Rob Elliot has come in and put his trust in Swan and that trust is now being rewarded with goals, with Swan scoring against Shrewsbury and Lincoln City.

And the goal against the Imps was important as it broke the deadlock and set Reds on their way to a 3-0 win – their first three points since Cambridge United away on August 17.

And Swan summed up the feeling afterwards in two simple words. “Definitely relief,” he said. “Some of the performances we have put in probably deserved three points but finally getting them. It’s been a frustrating few weeks so it’s relief more than anything else.

"I wouldn’t say it was one of our best performances as of late but despite that, to a man we battled and put a shift in and were hard to beat and we got a hard-earned and well-deserved point.”

And the win now lifts Reds ahead of three away trips on the bounce, starting at Northampton on Saturday. Swan said: “It’s hard not to get too low when you are on a run of bad form like we were, but we stuck with it and trusted everything the Gaffer has told us to do and it came through tonight.

“Like I said, it’s been a frustrating few weeks for us but probably more frustrating for the fans. It means everything that they are still there right at the end to clap us even when we lose, so that felt really good to give them a performance we can be proud of.”

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Unlike Saturday’s defeat at Reading where Crawley dominated all the stats, Lincoln had the better of the possession and Reds had to play a different way.

Swan said: “It’s good to show we can do both sides of it. The past few weeks we have played lots of good football but have not done the best job on the other side of it, being physical and hard to beat, tonight we showed we can do that as well.”

It was a brilliant finish from the striker, who was put through by Jeremy Kelly, to give Reds that vital breakthrough. Swan said: "There was no plan, it was head down and just hit it. It was a good ball from Jez and I just tried to put something on target.

"The defender nicked it a little bit, I had a quick look up and there wasn’t an awful lot of planning that went into it was head down.”

And Swan was full of praise for Elliot since the former Gateshead manager has come in. The striker said: “I think he’s been amazing since he came in, he’s got slightly different ideas to what we were doing with Scott. Myself and all the lads believe everything he is telling us to and that’s been showing in the last few weeks but we haven’t been getting the results to go with it.”