Mark Yates wants Crawley Town to show more fight

He was generally pleased with Reds’ display and singled out Luke Rooney for special praise.

Yates said: “Lots of encouraging signs. The goals were disappointing, both. Particularly after the second goal I thought we could have been punished a couple more times just through dropping our shoulders and dropping our heads and accepting getting beat.

“After they scored the second one I felt we opened the game up too much and they were getting in too easily. We will learn from it.

“They were a decent side, we knew that, and they will be expected to win games here.

“But I expected us to show a bit more fight. I want more off them all the time.”

Yates saw the game as a way of giving his whole squad a game, which included competitive debuts for Shamir Fenelon and Bryan Van Den Bogaert.

“We needed to get Bryan involved - I didn’t want to play Jon Ashton Saturday/Tuesday/Saturday first week. It was a chance to give everyone a game.

“I’ve got six players upfront but no-one is nailing down their place and saying ‘that’s me.’

“Luke Rooney played well once he stopped giving away in the first two minutes.

“His willingness to get involved and make things happen. He’s always trying things and I want everyone to take a leaf out of his book.

“Everyone is going to make mistakes, every single one of us. I just want them to make mistakes trying to do the right thing.”

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