Crawley Town ‘weren’t going to lose’ to promotion-chasing Swindon
Manager Scott Lindsey felt defeat was out of the question for Crawley Town on Saturday after they secured a late point against promotion-chasing Swindon Town at the Broadfield Stadium.
Kellan Gordon curled in a sublime equaliser against his old club in the eighth minute of stoppage-time to spark wild celebrations.
It was no less than the Reds deserved after a brilliant performance, but Lindsey was struggling to focus on that side of the game.
The hosts were pegged back after Klaidi Lolos’ opener after referee Simon Mather awarded the Robins a penalty – a call Lindsey branded ‘the worst decision I’ve ever seen in football’.
Despite the setbacks suffered during the game, the Reds’ boss was sure his players would fight back – even after going 2-1 down in the 91st minute.
“We weren’t going to lose this game today,” he said. “I know because of how we prepared for this game, how we trained all week.
“The meeting before the game was something special that we did, something different, and the feeling in the room was: there's no way we were losing this game today.
“The character shown was just immense, and we just kept going to the very last kick of the game. I thought we deserved to win the game. I thought we were the best team, thought we had the better chances.”
The result marks a third draw in four games for Lindsey’s side – all against teams battling for promotion to League One.
He said: “Against a team who are fighting for automatic spots, it just goes to show what we're capable of if we turn up and work hard, and that's what we did today.
“It was [the] basics. We worked so hard today. Everyone was engaged, ran, tackled, headed it, pressed, ran back, ran forward. It was a great game.”
The Reds are back in action against Colchester United on Friday night at 7.45pm.
Lindsey said: “The tough thing now is to recover from this and go again next Friday against Colchester.
“We've got to do that again and again and again [in the next] 10 games, because if we do that and play like that we’ll be fine.
“We’ve got to find that way of having that character like we had today.”
The point on Saturday took the Reds up to 21st in League Two, but they remain a point above the relegation zone.