What a difference three days make for Crawley Town - opinion

Following on from the disappointment of last Saturday, a much-improved performance saw us gain a well-earned victory over Joey Barton’s Gas.

Actually, from where I was standing, behind my red tinted glasses, I think we should have won by more.

Super Tom’s chance in the first half, and Oteh’s effort which just clipped the outside of the far post after the interval, would have given it a much fairer impression of how well we played.

Tom showed his class with his finish, and although the front on view of Jack Powell did seem to show a handball, that wasn’t the view any of the officials had.

What are they supposed to do Joey?

Take your word for it?

The biggest positives for me, were how well the “old” boys played our new method of playing, but with common sense when needed, and how well Corey Addai played in goal, commanding his box, catching everything and also making a couple of good saves to keep the clean sheet.

The statistics were pretty even, but pleasingly our shots score, both on and off target, showed an improvement over the first two games.

The one negative was the size of the crowd, and as a result I wonder if the club might consider using the same pricing strategy that they employed for the 2019 League cup run when we pulled in nearly 15000 fans in the three home games that we played.

Hats off to those who travelled to the Tea room capital of the world on Saturday. Whether you travelled by coach, car or managed to find a circuitous train route which avoided the train driver’s dispute, you should be saluted.

I, as with Carlisle, was once again listening to the dulcet tones of Gary Smith and “Travel” Ken Blackmore and was glad to see that only two changes had been made to the team that beat Bristol Rovers.

George Francomb and Dion Conroy missing out because of injuries.

As I have said before, listening to the game puts you through as much stress as if you are actually there and by the end of the ninety minutes, I was very willing to accept the point gained away from home.

This was even better received because of results from elsewhere moving us out of the relegation places.

Before you tell me to practice what I preach, exercising patience before judging our prospects, I have to admit that I, just like the rest of you, am anxious to see the first league goal go in, the first victory won and us rise up the table.

Personally, I don’t think it will be too long before all of that happens and I am gladdened to see that our defence seems to be more resolute as each game goes on, only two goals conceded in four games.

However, the injury situation does concern me as we are definitely under pressure at the back with at least three centre backs on the injury list, including the latest casualty, Ludwig Francilette.

Here’s hoping that, by the time you read this in print, some of our injured are fit again and we have beaten the cobblers