'You get beaten up' - Rob Elliott reluctant to make excuses after Crawley Town beaten in FA Cup thriller

Crawley took a two-goal lead through Jack Roles and Tola Showunmi but the away team levelled it before half-time.

Then in the second half, Lincoln came out and shocked the Reds with two quick-fire goals to see them take a commanding two-goal lead.

A Jeremy Kelly strike late on was not enough to see the Reds get back into the tie, with Crawley’s FA Cup adventure ending for another year.

The fact that so many Crawley Town players were injured would have played a factor in the result today, with almost a full starting 11 ruled out of today’s match.

But Elliot has said this is the nature of the business, and that his team need to get used to it.

He said: “We’ve been slightly in the bare bones, but the lads have dug in, have picked up results it covers it up a little bit, but when you do lose it is the first thing highlighted.

“Swanny is unwell but the rest of them are injured.

“That’s part of this league; you get beaten up and we just need to make sure we are as robust as possible. We had to monitor and adapt training slightly, so we don’t get anymore injuries.

“We should be a bit stronger on Tuesday [away at Charlton].”

At half time, Elliot made a double substitution linked to the injury concerns of his team, which may have been a contributing factor to the two goals the Imps scored after the break.

On if the changes were tactical or down to injuries, he said: “A little bit of both. TY [John-Jules] was only pencilled in for 45 as well, so we just need to adapt for the second half, but we didn’t get the chance to see that because we concede two straight away.

“Disappointing thing is from our kick off, and this is where we need to get better from in terms of simple instructions, we need to take it on: set pieces, goal kicks, what we do needs to be done properly.

“Sometimes you only learn from these things by being punished and that’s the gravest lesson sometimes.”