Roberts makes it home joy for Harry
AT FACE value, the goal in each half scored by hard-working midfielder Jordan Roberts suggested Crawley manager Harry Kewell would be totally satisfied his CV as a manager now includes his team’s first win at home.
Yet while the Australian was delighted to bag all three points, he knew that Yeovil could have put the match beyond Crawley’s reach had their finishing in the opening minutes of the game been clinical.
Kewell admitted: “We always knew it was going to be a tough match because Yeovil are a physical side and we needed to make adjustments to cope with them.
“They had a great chance to open the scoring early and had their moments later on as well. But after those first 25 minutes I felt we dealt with them quite comfortably.
“Now we have two wins on the trot and our confidence is slowly building. But with this being a tough league I know we can’t get ahead of ourselves.”
And the result might have been very different had Yeovil taken the lead in the seventh minute.
A golden opportunity was presented to Olufela Olomola, the striker on loan from Southampton, when he was left completely unmarked to prod home Francois Zoko’s cross,
but he missed the ball completely.
Later in the game Nathan Smith had a free header but put it straight at keeper Glenn Morris, and from close range sub Jordan Green misplaced a shot into the side-netting.
Yeovil manager Darren Way said: “Had we taken that early chance the result could have been so very different.
“But we then made a mistake and got punished for it too, as Crawley scored their first goal.
“Throughout the game I didn’t think we were as clinical, solid and competent as we have been in other games.”
Roberts’ first goal in the 12th minute was handed to him by a misplaced pass from Yeovil’s Connor Smith and he had the space and time to steer the ball wide of Artur Krysiak.
And he was unmarked for his second six minutes after the break when the speed of Enzio Boldewijn broke the visitors’ defence.
There were some hefty tackles which saw referee Trevor Kettle hand out seven yellow cards. But in the 79th minute he missed one violent off-the-ball clash between Crawley’s Josh Lelan and Yeovil’s Zoko which could have seen both players sent off.