'Unacceptable' - Kazim-Richards 'lost for words' as Crawley Town beaten at Accrington Stanley

Despite falling behind early on, the Reds were level going into the break after Danilo Orsi scored his first league goal of this campaign to cancel out Charlie Caton’s fourth-minute opener.

But Caton scored his second of the afternoon after 55 minutes, before Devon Matthews doubled Accrington’s advantage eight minutes later.

Pemi Aderoju pulled one back to breathe life into the visitors, but the Reds couldn’t find the all-important equaliser and were dealt their third defeat of the season.

Kazim-Richards’ side slipped to 21st in the table, and the 40-year-old was asked how frustrating he found the visitors’ slow starts to each half after the game.

He said: “To get three games in 10 days, to where you travel, I can forgive sometimes not starting off right with the ball at the end, or not out of possession.

“It doesn't matter – get to your marker, win the ball, win the block, stop the cross, and then if we're building how we want to play in the game, that's fine.

“It’s not frustrating – it’s unacceptable. They’ve been prepared for that, and I'm not here hanging them to dry. I've just said it to them, and I'll protect them every time.

“I still believe in them. We still have good players. You can't just keep saying that – you have to do it. We have to execute.”

He added: “I’m lost for words. I don't think frustration is a good word. Frustrating is something that is by chance. It happens now and then. It's not frustrating – it's unacceptable.”

Kazim-Richards felt his side were the architects of their own downfall on Saturday (September 5) by giving away three goals that were ‘nothing special at all’.

The Reds boss said: “We let ourselves down. The fans who came here – it's an absolute slog of a travel, and they came here and clapped us off and we let them down by not being switched on, not being engaged in the moments that we needed to be engaged.

“We created lots of chances, finished off two goals. Two goals away from home – we really should come away with something, and we haven't.

“At least we came away with a point in Northampton, and coming away with something here in terms of three points would have made that point an absolutely massive point. It's just not good enough. It's got to be better.”

The Reds welcome Cheltenham Town to the Broadfield Stadium next Saturday (September 12) at the earlier kick-off time of 12:30pm.

After losing their first two home games, and being dealt their first away defeat against Accrington, Kazim-Richards apologised to the fans that made the trip to Lancashire.

He said: “We allowed the other team to play their style of game for 30 minutes in that game – it's unacceptable. So, we do apologise. We're big enough to apologise, and it wasn't good enough. For those 30 minutes, it wasn't good enough.

“Going down and then fighting to come back – how about we go and lead it? And we dominate and win it and take it to them, not having to be on the back foot and then it's like survival mode and we're chasing.

“We don't want that. We dominate from the start, and it's something that we're going to put right.”