'I don't understand it' - Crawley Town boss gives his assessment of Walsall penalty after draw

The Red Devils boss spoke about referee John Busby’s decision to award Walsall a penalty when Jay Williams was adjudged to have fouled Jack Earing inside the area, allowing former Crawley man Isaac Hutchinson to open the scoring in the 38th minute.

Lindsey said: “I’ve watched it back, it’s not a penalty, he’s (Williams) not touched him (Earing), no one’s touched him, he’s dived. I just said to the referee, you can only give it if you see it and we haven’t seen it because it’s not there. He’s pulled his foot away, it’s really clear. I don’t understand it, but there you go.” Read Lucas Michael's match report here.

Reflecting on his side’s positive performance nonetheless, Lindsey was left pleased and believes that they could have earned all three points: “I think on reflection, we’ve played outstanding in my opinion. I thought we were very, very good tonight. We limited them to very little. They’ve got some real attacking threats and we limited them to very little.

“I thought we were excellent all night. For a time who’s lost the last however many games it is now, and I’ve been really big on this, we never change what we do, I don’t want us to become direct, nervous or anxious. I want us to keep playing our style of football and I thought we did it brilliantly tonight and I thought that we probably deserved more than just a point.”

Crawley Town player ratings v Walsall

One particular standout was Jeremy Kelly, who made his first start since his January move from USA side Tulsa. Lindsey, like many at the Broomfield Stadium, was left impressed and spoke about what more we can expect from the American: “I think it’s clear to see he’s very comfortable in possession, he comes inside the pitch very well. I thought he rotated brilliantly with Ronan Darcy - sometimes you saw Darcy wide and Jeremy inside the pitch.

“I think you’ll see goals from him, he’s an athlete, a very good runner. He’s not played a lot of football so it was the right decision to take him off, it was always planned, because I don’t want to injure him. You know, he’s only just walked through the door, so we wanna make sure that we pick the right amount of minutes for certain players and obviously he’s one that’s important to us. But he was very, very good tonight.”