Finding positives in Crawley Town's 3-0 defeat to Barnsley is hard, but there were a couple
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But it could be argued there were two good points from the Reds’ first defeat at the Broadfield Stadium in five months.
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Hide AdCrawley fans got to see glimpses of what new striker Will Swan can do in the 45 minutes he played. The striker worked hard with little reward or service as Reds looked to turn round what seemed to be an unassailable lead.
Swan chased down lose balls, showed strength and pace at times, but, as Scott Lindsey said, this side were playing ‘out of control’ football, so it was hard for the former Mansfield striker to make a huge impression.
About his new striker’s performance, Lindsey said: "I think it was difficult because it was out of control game in that second half. But I think he showed real good glimpses of what he is capable of. He is a good footballer. He's goal scorer that’s why we put him on the pitch.
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Hide Ad“But we never really gave him any anything to feed on really and also. But as I say it was out of control, we were just chasing a three-gold deficit at that point.”
The second positive was seeing Harry Forster return to the pitch. The winger has not seen any action since the League Two play-off semi-final second leg at MK Dons.
Forster was a key part of Crawley’s success last season, particularly in the second half of the season.
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Hide AdHe clearly match sharpness but it was great to see him on the pitch. It may have been a surprise to see him come on ahead of Armando Quitirna and Ade Adeyemo as Crawley chased the game, but Lindsey explained why.
"We toyed with certain different things and Junior felt a tight hamstring yesterday, so we needed to be mindful of that and then of course we didn't want to throw Junior on in the game because we thought, ‘we’ve got two weeks off there's, no point risking him’.
“If he's tight yesterday, there's a chance he comes on and tries so hard and then stretches it and or tears his hamstring, and then we're missing him for six weeks.
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Hide Ad“We were limited with that and what we had to do on the bench, but Ade came on and had a charge about and it was pleasing to see Harry Forster on the pitch again.”
Reds now have two weeks off with the Burton Albion game being postponed because of international call-ups.
This will give players like Dion Conroy and Gavan Holohan time to come back into contention when the Reds host Stockport County on Saturday, September 14.
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Hide AdWith Swan, loan signing Bradley Ibrahim and, reportedly, Nigerian centre back Benjamin Tanimu, coming in this transfer window – along with the return of Forster, (and hopefully) Conroy and Holohan, it looks like Lindsey could have some selection headaches ahead.
Lindsay said: “We've got some good players in the squad. We've now got to make sure we have a winning formula together within the squad.”