Taste of the Terrace: I’ve never felt so downright angry at Crawley Town’s performance

If anything encapsulated Gabriele Cioffi’s detachment from reality it was his 75th minute substitution of Reece Grego-Cox for Dominic Poleon.
Crawley Town fan and columnist Geoff Thornton SUS-150216-151358002Crawley Town fan and columnist Geoff Thornton SUS-150216-151358002
Crawley Town fan and columnist Geoff Thornton SUS-150216-151358002

For the second home game running the Italian chose to take off Crawley’s Man of the Match, no doubt baffling the sponsors as much as the home supporters.

The young striker fully deserved that accolade for his non-stop effort in which no challenge was too great and no chase a step too far.

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This was in stark contrast to Ollie Palmer, who is losing legions of fans.

It was a display also worthy of topping that of Dannie Bulman who played as only he can and scored an even better goal than those featuring in the Goal of the Season competition on the club website.

It seems as though the players must have read my words as they once again threw it all away at the death.

The confusion between Filipe Morais and Joe Maguire that led to Christian Doidge’s second goal suggested they never talk to each other.

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Certainly Morais seemed to blame his team-mate for not reacting to his own poor pass.

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They are a sound enough team but were generally outfought and out-footballed by Crawley Town.

For once we scored when we were on top as Bulman’s powerful drive from better than 30 yards proved unstoppable and showed that reward can come simply from having a go.

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In attack we looked better although Grego-Cox was not adequately supported.

The backline was generally excellent although Doidge scored the opener with embarrassing ease.

He must love playing against us. It begs the question, how did we manage to lose? How indeed!

It was not down to the referee, although for a spell Darren Drysdale seemed to be on a totally different planet to everyone else.

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Nothing occurred to merit the hugely unbalanced foul count and afterwards one fan, an active referee by the way, described the official’s decisions as “diabolical.”

Although Reds’ display was better on the day the faults and shortcomings appear not to have been addressed, nor do they look likely to be. No matter how hard the lads work in training nothing will improve until the coaches have instilled some cohesion into the set-up.

That means changing the approach (and therefore the incumbents) and, should we survive, testing Paul Hayward’s rumoured generosity and strengthening the squad.

In the meantime the club seems to be sliding inexorably towards a local derby with Sutton United in the National League next season.

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I have come away from watching other games feeling disappointed, frustrated, even bemused but I don’t believe I have ever felt so downright angry at the way this fine club’s heritage is being trashed.

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