'We're a little bit to nice' - Crawley Town boss pleased to get through in EFL Trophy after Aston Villa win, but disappointed with 'soft' goals

Thanks to the 3-2 win over Aston Villa u21s at the Broadfield Stadium, it is the first time in seven years the club have qualified for knockout stages in this tournament

He said: “Really pleased with the result I think it’s important we had that winning mentality throughout the group. I’m disappointed with the goals we conceded I thought we were a bit soft in the first half we spoke about that at half time and wanted to show more aggression in one versus one situations.”

Crawley have conceded 12 in their last five now and despite the win Lindsey admitted he hasn’t been best pleased with the defensive performances. “We’ve got to stop conceding goals like we are it’s almost like we have to score three goals minimum to win a game and that’s not what we want to be,” he said. “We want to come away winning games and having clean sheets and at the moment we’re a little bit to nice.”

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Midfielder Jack Roles was named man of the match as he scored twice in an impressive display on his first start since the previous round of the EFL Trophy against Sutton last month. Ade Adeyemo also played the full 90 minutes and Lindsey was full of praise for arguably the two best players on the pitch on the night.

He said: “They’ve not played a lot of football, so I’m pleased for them to get some much-needed minutes I thought Ade did brilliantly playing that wide berth I thought he did extremely well.

“I’m really pleased for Jack, I’ve been wanting to see that kind of performance from him and to finish with two good goals and he could probably have added to that as well and that gives me something to think about for Saturday for sure.”

Crawley made nine changes from the side that played against Notts County with only Will Wright and Travis Johnson being named in a line-up that featured heavy rotation. Lindsey spoke on the importance of rotation and developing players and in this case, one of his staff members. “Pleased to go through, it’s important we keep winning but it’s important because we’re developing players here you can only develop these players if there’s games for them to play in so it’s great that we go through.

“Also developing staff as well, there’s a young analyst Jack who delivers the meetings in these games and it’s brilliant experience for him to be able to put the meetings together and deliver to the boys before kick-off so we’re developing not just the players but the staff as well.”