Scott Lindsey calls for mentality change after Crawley Town’s pre-season win at Aldershot

Goals from Ronan Darcy and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy saw the Reds run out 2-1 winners at Aldershot Town last night [July 30] – but Lindsey was far from pleased with what he saw from his players towards the end of the game.

He said: “I thought we started the game really well and then I felt that after they scored our mentality shifted a little bit for the worse.

“In order for us to be competitive this season we have to have a different mentality.

“I saw players walking to take a corner with two minutes to go drawing a game. It isn't acceptable.

“We have to have more of a winning mentality and more kinds of aggression to win a game.

“I felt that the first 20, 25 minutes we were really good and then from there I thought we turned the ball over a lot.

“I didn't think we ran hard enough to get back into our shape and I think our mentality wasn't there, which they needed to change really quickly and I've told them that.

“We need to change really quickly because we're not here to make the numbers up [in League One] and I won’t accept players walking to take a corner.

“I won’t accept players not being able to run back into their shape when we turn the ball over, and I won't accept the team accepting that somebody was walking to take the corner.

“As much as there was a lot of good play tonight, the mentality needs a kick up the backside because I'm a winner and I want my team to be a winner.

“They need to understand how to win a game and walking to take a corner when your at 1-1 is not a mentality that I want.”

With the Reds’ League One opener against Blackpool looming on the horizon, Lindsey admitted he would err on the side of caution in Crawley’s final pre-season game at Ebbsfleet United on Saturday.

He said: “We have to be mindful to protect the players as we don't want them going into the final week before we play Blackpool fatigued.

“We want them fatigued this week, obviously, but we have to be careful.

“We don't want to pick up any muscle strains at this stage so we've got to be careful with that.

“I did highlight that we'd probably be looking at more than 90 minutes.

“I think that given one or two kinds of soreness around the camp, I've had to adjust that and I may have to adjust that again on Saturday but the lads are fit.

“They've worked extremely hard these last five weeks, they've put a a real good shift in.

“We just have to tweak a few things tactically and mentality wise we have to become better.”