'Not my duty' - Crawley Town boss explains why he doesn't give updates on injured players

The Crawley Observer/Sussex World asked the Reds boss ahead of the Accrington Stanley trip if there were updates on players like Stephen Duke-McKenna, who we understand has a slight hamstring injury.

But response was blunt and honest. “You know I'm not going to tell you that,” he said.

There have been comments on social media from fans asking why the reporters who get to speak to Kazim-Richards don’t ask about injuries. Gary Charman posted on the Crawley Town FC Supporters Group Facebook page: "Would be lovely if the pre match review reporters actually asked the question on injured players, how long out etc. There are two reporters, you think one of them could get the question in.”

We made the former Brighton striker aware of this and he said: “Yeah, that's fine, but it's not my duty to. I don't have to tell anybody about any injury. The reason why I do it is not about not telling the fans. The other team will look at it and now they have [information] and think ‘it might be this or it might be that’.

“I feel like when we play against a team you might see our XI and it could be totally different positions. Where's Ade [Adeyemo] playing? Is he playing winger? Is he playing striker? Is he playing left? Is he playing right? When I tell you that this guy is injured and that then everybody has our possibilities down. So I'll state that for you because you [Mark Dunford] are one of the good guys in terms of media.

“It's never not to give you information. It's always to protect ourselves because people do watch these interviews. Don't let coaches say to you that they don't because they do.”

“And it's just information. So to all the fans, I hope that helps out. He [Mark] does ask me the questions, but I won't answer them.”