Steve Herbert: Broadfield is no Fortress - success on road needed

I guess you’d call Saturday’s defeat to Bristol Rovers a reality check as to how good we have to be this season to win football matches.

Maybe it was the sight of rain for the first time in three months and forgetting what a zippy pitch feels like, or maybe we just didn’t turn up.

The 2-0 defeat to Steve Evans' side was a tough one to take, especially after how well we’d played and the result we achieved at Rochdale last week. But this time it wasn’t to be, as Reds looked second best all afternoon.

If it had been a boxing match the referee would have stopped it long before the end. For all Crawley’s possession we just couldn’t create those magic moments that change games.

The fact we only mustered eight shots, with one on target, as opposed to Rovers' 27 shots with five on target, tells you everything you need to know about the game.

Having said all that it was an absolute peach of a free kick that put the Gas in front. They then capitalised on some suspect defending just before half-time to double their lead, a lead that we just couldn’t recover from.

The second half came and went and new boy Dylan Morgan, signed from Torquay United last week, showed some promising touches after his introduction, but in all honesty it was a game that will be quickly forgotten by the Broadfield Stadium faithful.

The only real positive to come from the day was the crowd of 4,120, although Bristol Rovers helped bump this figure up by bringing 851 of those.

After the 1-0 defeat at home to Crewe on the opening day, Fortress Broadfield it isn’t right now, as home form has deserted us for the moment.

We now turn our attention to two tough away trips to Northampton (Tuesday) and Accrington (Saturday) where we will need to reproduce the performance at Rochdale to get Colin Kazim-Richards' men back to winning ways.