Crawley boss Yates admits: '˜My players are dead on their feet'

And he admitted some of them have lost their spark after such an exhausting schedule.

Yates said: “The numbers that we’ve had haven’t been what a professional football club requires and I think a few of them have shot their bolt if you like.

“One or two are dead on their feet.

We are picking up one or two injuries and we have a lack of goals is evident at the moment, I fully understand that.

“But it’s what we’ve got, we’ve kept them up!

“I’m not proud of our recent record, but we’ve played some tough games.”

Yates praised the display of striker Gavin Tomlin in the first half and reckoned his replacement in the second half, Roarie Deacon, should have scored.

He said: “Gavin offered a real good threat for us in the first half.

“Gav had a really good chance for us, someone else had a really good chance for us, Gav went off at half-time and Roarie (Deacon) didn’t quite have the same impact but right after half-time he could or should have scored a goal.”

“There isn’t a great deal we can do differently but we have to just got to keep working on the training ground and hopefully start taking our chances.”

“A bit more responsibility, a bit more care. That first goal is vital on this pitch and but unfortunately it didn’t come.”

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