‘Until the second goal went in, I was loving it’ - Crawley Town's interim head coach on first game in charge

The hosts conceded inside five minutes from a corner, with Kyle Dempsey having slotted the ball away after getting away from his marker, before substitute John McAtee fired the ball past Jojo Wollacott in the second half to finish the game.

Crawley had much more of the ball but could not take their chances, as they finished the week in disappointing fashion after losing former manager Scott Lindsey earlier in the week.

After the game, interim manager Ben Gladwin said: “Overall, a lot of pride for the players level of commitment and making it look very similar in terms of performance overall, but obviously a lot of disappointment.

“As soon as the second goal goes in it becomes a lot harder and the game doesn’t look how we want it to.

“Results are the most important thing; we need to pick them up but really grateful for the players.”

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On the overall performance, Gladwin liked what he saw for the most part, as he said: “So much of the game looked how we wanted it to look, other than a few moments.

“Set pieces were big today and we didn’t get one quite right and they scored from that and then they punished us on the break, but in all honestly that was one of the only times they managed to do it.

“To concede early is always frustrating but when it is also from a set piece, cause you almost feel like maybe we didn’t prepare the players enough so not easy but I really enjoyed the players resilience to fight back and take control of the game and I felt we were the better team for a lot of the game.

“I thought we locked out the action fantastically and stayed in their part of the pitch a lot.”

Dion Conroy has missed the start of the season due to injury, but Gladwin has still found a use for him as he works his way back into the first team.

He said: “He’s not a million miles away now, we are not going to rush him as he is going to be so important when he comes back.

“He was brilliant. We asked him to come on the bench with us to almost help with the defensive unit.”

It has been a hectic week for Gladwin, with his former manager now departed for League Two side MK Dons and a lot of other staff also departing, it has not been easy for him to get used to being interim manager, but he has still enjoyed the experience.

He said: “Until the second goal went in, I was loving it, I really enjoyed it. When the second goal went in that deflated me a little bit. In terms of an experience; and immense pride in the players.

“I’m employed by the football club to help out as best as I can, so that I find myself currently and interim manager role. There are loads of people behind the scenes it's not me I'm the guy who happens to come and sits here, everybody is pulling in the same direction.

“I think it's a moment for everyone at the club to pull together, everyone wants to pull in the same direction, we all want the same things, the lads are fully committed, the lads are working so so hard. Us as staff [what’s left of us] are working really really hard and we are going to try to prepare the boys for the game against Mansfield to get a positive result.”

“I thought they were brilliant today and we are going to need them.”

The Reds do not have to wait long for their next game, with a home game against Mansfield on Tuesday evening being their next chance to grab a needed three points.