Crawley Town defeat West Ham United in friendly as players get important minutes

Crawley Town played and won their first match in almost two weeks on Tuesday against West Ham’s under 21s after recovering from a squad sickness.

“With the illness the players have had over the last 10 days in the camp, they needed those minutes to get it out of their system,” said Etherington. “That should help us ahead of Monday.”

The Reds will try to bounce back their league form on Monday after a disappointing loss to Hartlepool United last time out.

Last Thursday, Etherington revealed that much of his squad had fallen ill with players “struggling to catch their breath”. That weekends fixture against Tranmere Rovers was luckily postponed due to weather conditions but, it could’ve left Crawley without game time since the beginning of December.

“You could tell we’d been struggling with illness for the first part of the game,” said Etherington, on Crawley’s recent victory. “We were a little slow but it was a really good exercise.

“We actually pencilled this game in before the Tranmere (Rovers) game got postponed and it’s worked out very well for us because we needed this today.”

Jack Powell scored the winner against the Hammers after Dom Telford found him inside the penalty area. Telford also opened the scoring in the first half but the game was drawn level through Keenan Appiah-Forson.

“It was a 21s team that have done well in the Papa John’s Trophy,” added Etherington on the young West Ham side, who missed out on the next round of the Papa John’s Trophy despite finishing on the same points as MK Dons and Cheltenham.

“They were unlucky not to qualify on goal difference, but you can tell why they did well, they’ve got some very good players,” said Etherington.

Crawley could overtake Newport County on Boxing Day with a win over Sutton United. After 21 games, they’re 19th in League Two and will be looking for a vast improvement heading into the new year.