Search for
Search for
Search forUPDATED: Crawley Town 1 Ebbsfleet United 2
Thursday, November 20, 2008, 22:52
Crawley shipped two goals in the last seven minutes against Ebbsfleet, missing their chance to rejoin the Blue Square Premier promotion race and slumping to their third league defeat in four games.
Raynor was sent out to explain Crawley's latest collapse to the press and admitted that questions needed to be asked about his side's defending in the closing stages.
"To say I'm disappointed is an understatement," said the Reds assistant manager. "We felt comfortable but the level of our defending on the last 10 minutes was not good enough and we need to ask questions.
"It's three points down the drain and we need to sort that out very quickly."
"It is psychological. They were always in the game and are going to chase and be more adventurous. But we have to be able to defend, and the quality of our defending in the last quarter was not good enough.
"Unfortunately we have lost that resilience at the moment and we have to find it again very, very quickly. We'll go away and look at fitness levels, at individuals and at ourselves defensively. We'll look at whether the substitutions we made were the right ones.
"You can't defend like that and make basic errors. They were not causing us an awful lot of problems but making silly mistakes has cost us dearly."
Ebbsfleet's Michael Gash and Luke Moore seized all three points for their side, capitalising on two pieces of poor defending by Crawley in the last 10 minutes.
The goals consigned the Reds to their first home league defeat since the opening day of the season but it was also their fourth defeat in the last six games in all competitions.
Playing in front of Setanta seems to have a curse over Crawley who have lost their last eight televised games.
But for most of the game, it appeared the hosts might be about to end that rotten sequence. Jon-Paul Pittman put the Reds in front on 33 minutes, finally escaping the attentions of ex-Red Darius Charles to latch onto Steve Fletcher's flick on and drill unerringly past England C goalkeeper Lance Cronin.
But Crawley took their foot off the gas and United's debutant Matthew Delicate gave a warning just a minute later when he fired narrowly wide from 20 yards. Chris Giles then survived a handball shout in his own penalty box and Stacy Long forced Simon Rayner to turn a shot round the post before the break.
The hosts suffered more injury problems in the first half when Jamie Stevens, who had stepped in at right-back after Glenn Wilson had gone down with illness before kick-off, twisted his ankle awkwardly and had to be stretchered off.
His replacement Simon Weatherstone did well as a makeshift full-back and had a chance to double Crawley's lead on 58 minutes but skied a shot from the edge of the area. Pittman managed to test Cronin from 20 yards after a good long pass by Thomas Pinault but it was to be the last time the Reds threatened as Ebbsfleet dominated the last 30 minutes.
Moore and Gash both forced good low saves from Rayner but with seven minutes left, Gash was allowed to waltz past half-hearted challenges by Thomas Pinault and Adam Quinn to steal into the penalty area before blasting the equaliser into the bottom corner.
And in the final minute of normal time, the Reds watched Ebbsfleet take all three points as Luke Moore seized on a fluffed clearance by Quinn and evaded the challenge of Jake Wright before rifling into the top right hand corner.
Crawley: Rayner, Stevens (Weatherstone 37), Giles, Quinn, Wright, Malcolm, Bulman, Pinault, Killeen (Dayton 73), Pittman (Cook 86), Fletcher. Unused subs: Forrest, Mills. Booked: Quinn, Pinault. Goal: Pittman 33.
Star man: Thomas Pinault.
Ebbsfleet: Cronin, Opinel, Smith, Charles, Long (Slatter 86), Gash, Stone, Barrett, Ricketts, Moore, Delicate (Purcell 70). Unused subs: Pooley, Ibe, Mott. Booked: Delicate. Goals: Gash 83, Moore 90.
Attendance: 922.
Comment on this story