Speaking after the game, Crawley Town manager John Yems said the words going through his mind when Nick Tsaroulla scored the winner were: “that’s handy ‘cos now I don’t have to shout at Nick for giving away the goal he should’ve stopped!
"I think Nick was thinking the same but all jokes aside, we’ve got to learn from that. Another week, if we defend like that, we lose the game, but I’m not going to rain on anyone’s parade because we’ve worked hard to get a result like this.”
Tsaroulla spoke of his joy at netting the winner: “I was on the pitch thinking 'please god give us one chance' and I’m happy I was able to take it. The lads put in a real shift today and we should’ve won by three or four but yeah we all dug in, kept fighting and were able to get the win.”
The first Reds' goal of the day was scored by Tom Nichols who received praise from his gaffer after the game: “He’s never lacked confidence but if you give him the right opportunities, he’ll score more than he’ll miss. He gets everybody going, Sam Ashford worked well with him up top; we’ve got Naderz [Ashley Nadesan] to bring on and the likes of Alex Battle to come back into the squad; we can bring Kwesi [Appiah] on who holds the ball up, wins free-kicks and knows how to see the game out.
Both Yems and Tsaroulla also praised new signing Joel Lynch for his man-of-the-match performance at left centre-back.
“We only knew he [Joel Lynch] was playing yesterday,” said Yems, “so we’ve done a bit of work with the back four but it’s a credit to everybody.”
“Oh, it was brilliant playing next to him today, I thought he was outstanding. He was constantly talking and I know he’ll cover me, and I’ll cover him so yeah, it was a good relationship today,” remarked Tsaroulla.
Towards the end of his interview, Yems added: “I think for everybody it was a relief to get the result and I’ve said it before, but we might be naive at times, we might give things away but well never give in.”
