John Gregory signs new Crawley Town contract

Reds manager John Gregory has signed a new contract that ties him to the club until the end of the 2015/16 season.
Crawley V Leyton Orient - Crawley boss JoJohn Gregpory has signed a new deal (Pic by Jon Rigby) SUS-140422-142953002Crawley V Leyton Orient - Crawley boss JoJohn Gregpory has signed a new deal (Pic by Jon Rigby) SUS-140422-142953002
Crawley V Leyton Orient - Crawley boss JoJohn Gregpory has signed a new deal (Pic by Jon Rigby) SUS-140422-142953002

Gregory, who has been in charge since replacing Richie Barker in December, signed a new two-year deal before Crawley Town’s final game of the season, which ended in a 1-1 draw with Bristol City on Saturday.

He said: “I obviously asked questions about next season, about budgets and the chance of improving the squad and once they were answered in the manner I wanted them to be answered, obviously I had no hesitation to (sign).

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“I’m very happy here, it’s a fantastic football club, supporters have been brilliant towards me and to the players, they’ve supported all of us even during that rough three weeks where we lost six matches on the trot, they were still there behind us.

Crawley V Leyton Orient - Crawley boss JoJohn Gregpory has signed a new deal (Pic by Jon Rigby) SUS-140422-142953002Crawley V Leyton Orient - Crawley boss JoJohn Gregpory has signed a new deal (Pic by Jon Rigby) SUS-140422-142953002
Crawley V Leyton Orient - Crawley boss JoJohn Gregpory has signed a new deal (Pic by Jon Rigby) SUS-140422-142953002

“So it wasn’t really a difficult decision for me to want to stay.”

Gregory also discussed the topic of contracts, with an announcement due on Monday over the 13 players whose deals run out shortly.

Crawley have offered at least some of those reduced wages with next season’s wages being cut, and Gregory admitted he had to be “ruthless”.

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“I’ve stuck my neck out a little bit on the ones I wanted to keep.

“They were basically all my decisions, I was allowed to chose which direction we wanted to go next season, those who I wanted to stay and those I didn’t want to stay.

“I had to be ruthless, possibly more so than I wanted to be, but it was certainly time to freshen things up.

“With the financial budget I have to be very careful how I spent it and make sure I bring in the right people.

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The Reds manager also spoke about on-loan Brighton winger Jeffrey Monakana, calling him a potential “match-winner” but adding:

“It’s been hard to get him on the training ground and work him as hard as we’d like to to get his fitness levels up.”

Gregory also confirmed friendlies with Chelsea, Fulham and Brighton had already been arranged for pre-season.

View the video of John speaking about his new deal above (video has come out dark).