Scott Lindsey has ‘faith’ in Crawley Town players after defeat at top-of-the-table Leyton Orient sees them slide into drop zone

The Reds loss at Orient, coupled with Hartlepool United’s late equaliser at AFC Wimbledon, saw Pools leapfrog the Reds into 22nd and out of the drop zone.

Crawley are now a point behind Hartlepool, but have three games in hand over the County Durham outfit.

Lindsey said: “I’ve got faith in them, because I know how hard they work everyday. I know what it means to them.

“I’ve just heard them in there [in the dressing room], and I’ve spoken to them in there. A few players have said a few things, and it means a lot to them. I fully back them.”

Idris El Mizouni scored what proved to be the O’s winner on 48 minutes. Kieran Sadlier played in the Ipswich Town loanee, who cut inside and finished past Crawley’s debutant keeper Ryan Schofield.

Lindsey added: “I thought they [Orient] thoroughly deserved to win it. In all honesty, I think we played reasonably well in the first half. I thought we had a couple of chances, but one skidded across the face of the goal, as it did up the other end as well.

“It was a good game for us in the first half. With what we had in terms of players and the injuries that we’ve got, I thought that we went about our business really well in the first half.

“In the second half, again, they score from our corner. We’re not professional enough and smart enough to see that, and run hard on the turnover. The ball turns over, they hit the ball out the box, and then they break on us aggressively.

“We’ve got to then run back aggressively with them. We didn’t in that moment.

“You go 1-0 down at a place like this and it becomes really hard. They managed the game better than we did, and [it then] becomes a long afternoon.”

The Reds have now conceded inside the opening nine minutes of the second half in their last three games, and Lindsey stressed that this issue was something that his side desperately needed to cut out.

He continued: “We spoke at half-time, and it was one of the last things that we said before we went on to the field of play for the second half.

“I don’t know what more we can do. We talk about it, we look at it back, I don’t know what more we can do.”

Crawley were missing midfield talismen Ben Gladwin and Teddy Jenks for this afternoon’s game at Brisbane Road.

Lindsey admitted the Reds missed their grit and determination in east London, but paid tribute to the club’s young guns for acquitting themselves well against the league leaders.

He said: “I thought there were a lot of fifty-fifty tackles, certainly in the second half, that they were on top of.

“We’ve got players missing, Gladwin, Jenks, [Nick] Tsaroulla, really top players. We had two 19-year-olds playing, and an 18-year-old come off the bench, so we’re threadbare. But you give those players responsibility to go and play, and I thought the young players did well.”