‘Everyone was outstanding’ – John Yems hails team effort in Crawley win

Crawley head coach John Yems paid tribute to a “team performance” as the Reds comfortably beat Colchester 3-1 in their first game for three weeks.

Two headed goals from striker Ashley Nadesan and a close-range effort from defender Joel Lynch gave Crawley their best home league victory for over a year.

Colchester pulled a late goal back through Freddie Sears’ 10th of the season, but are winless away in the league since early September.

After their enforced lay-off, Yems was relieved that his men came through unscathed and he said: “It was complements to the lads – we won as a team.

“It was important that every player came off breathing well.

“We had 19 affected, including staff, with Covid and injuries a few weeks ago so it was a team performance.

“Everyone was outstanding and dragged each other through the game.

“We missed more chances than we put away and credit to Glenn Morris for producing a fantastic save to keep us in the game.”

Back-to-back wins have taken the Reds up to 14th in League Two and Yems added: “It was brilliant to hear the fans’ noise but it is not rosy until the end of the season. “

Colchester have now failed to win any of their last seven away league games and boss Hayden Mullins summed up “a bad day” for his side.

Mullins criticised the nature of the goals they conceded and said: “It was not a good enough performance by us. We made it too easy for them.

“We hadn’t played for three weeks and the break didn’t help us; defensively we were poor.

“Especially away from home you need to be tighter, and we need to be a lot tighter.”

The U’s were left to rue a missed early chance for Alan Judge, and Mullins admitted: ”We must make our chances count.”

Barring Sears, no Colchester player seems like hitting the target regularly and Mullins is looking to the January transfer window to increase firepower in his squad.

“We have got bits and pieces we want to try and do. We’ve got to give ourselves chances to win games and need to bounce back quickly,” he said.