I will deal with it – Crawley boss Lewis Young vows to address infighting

Posted Sunday, November 20, 2022 by PA

Crawley boss Lewis Young said he would not tolerate infighting between his players after a late flashpoint marred a brave defensive effort with 10 men in their last-gasp 2-1 defeat at Walsall.

The Red Devils had to play almost an hour a man light after Ludwig Francillette’s dismissal.

They almost hung on for a point after a string of superb saves from Ellery Balcombe, but Danny Johnson’s 92nd-minute strike won it for Walsall.

There were angry confrontations between several Crawley players afterwards, with defender Joel Lynch held back by team-mates after Town’s first league loss under caretaker Young.

“It’s something I don’t like and don’t stand for,” Young said.

“There’s a way of demanding it out of each other, but there’s a way of stopping short of doing silly things like that. I will deal with it in-house.

“They had a disagreement on the pitch, as happens – we all want to win. It doesn’t need to be made into a mountain, it’s just a molehill. But I’m not happy with it.”

Young was also unhappy with Francillette’s sending-off, insisting Johnson was offside in the build-up that led to his second booking.

“Watching it back, he’s offside, but we’ve still got to defend it better – it’s one long ball forward and he shouldn’t be able to get goal-side,” added Young, whose side slipped to 19th.

“Ultimately the referee has made the decision and we have to deal with it better emotionally. We needed to look after the ball a hell of a lot better in the second period.

“But we’ve been on a great run. I’m proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with them – they put in a proper performance.”

Dom Telford swept Crawley ahead early, but Hayden White levelled immediately before Johnson’s 10th league goal of the season finally ended Balcombe’s brave resistance.

A fifth straight home league win moved Walsall 11th and boss Michael Flynn said: “After the first 20 minutes, we were the better team.

“The goal we conceded was a little bit sloppy, but I think the most important thing today was the equaliser straight after because it settled everyone down.

“We got control of the game and obviously the sending-off helped. We made a poor few decisions, but we kept going and going and going – I think it was 24 attempts on goal.

“We’ve got to improve the away form in terms of wins.

“We are improving the performances, but now we want a few more wins on the road because you can’t keep relying on your home form, even though we’ve changed it dramatically since we came in.

“We deserved to win the game today – thankfully we got it and I don’t care how we got it or what time we got it, we’ve won the game and got three points.”