'I think you can see the way that we’re going to play' - Crawley Town boss reflects on final pre-season outing
Colin Kazim-Richards responded to his side’s performance in their 0-1 defeat to Reading in their last pre-season test.
Despite defeat at the Broadfield Stadium yesterday evening, the Crawley boss remained positive in his reflection on the Reds display and was encouraged by many aspects of the game including the identity of his team in the way he wants them to play.
He said: “I think you can see the way that we’re going to play. You can see what we’ve worked on. You can see how dynamic we are. You can see how when we move the ball quick, we’re a good side, tough to figure out, tough to compete against, because there’s many different ways, lots of different options.”
On an overall review of the game he thought his side ‘started off a bit flat, built our way into the team, which is normal’ before revealing that the trialists were thrown in at the deep end;
“What everybody doesn’t understand is that our three new signings [trialists] literally came an hour and a half before the meeting time of the game, did their medicals and played, so to have that mentality is a credit, that’s the type of people we want in the building,” he said.
“So it took them a little while to figure each other out, which is normal, figure out what we expect, what we want, how we want them to play and then ultimately to be themselves. Once we did that we built into the game well, we took control of the game.”
The Crawley manager added: “I thought we was good up until the 18 yard box, which we needed to be better in the first 60, but other than that I thought we was good, our rest defence, our intensity to get to the ball, our intensity to restart and regain possession again was top.”
The former Derby County striker was particularly impressed with the last half an hour of the game where the Reds looked like the only team to score after a number of changes on 60 minutes.
He said: “The last 30 I thought our intensity went up by 50, 60 per cent. We looked really really dangerous, some lovely combinations, some lovely line breaking play.”
Boyd Beacroft gave Reading the lead with just over ten minutes left to play with an effort from inside his own half and Kazim-Richards said in regards to the goal conceded by his team that: “Ultimately, we make one mistake in terms of focusing on our rest defence and we got punished and the good teams are going to be able to do that […] But in those instances, the way we play that could happen.”
The 39-year-old gave a message to the players when that situation occurs: “What I want is us to stay true to ourselves, to our plan, to the way we want to play, and keep trying to do what we was doing before that goal went in.”