Tubbs on target to give hope to Town
CRAWLEY first team coach Guy Whittingham has warned his side not to get carried away after Matt Tubbs’ late penalty lifted them five places.
The Red Devils must play 18 games in nine weeks, about five more than most other teams, and trail a top six position by 14 points.
Despite taking seven points out of nine against Walsall, Swindon and Peterborough, Whittingham is not thinking too far ahead.
He said:“If you’re playing and not losing everybody wants to keep going, that’s where we are at the moment.
“We certainly take confidence into our games but we can’t go in thinking we have an automatic right to win.
“We’re up to 13th which is quite a jump. If we get some decent results together we always felt we could climb.
“We have Stevenage on Tuesday who are a physical team that are going to be confident when they come here.
“They’ve won late which gives them the same lift we’ve had so we have to stay grounded.”
Tubbs, who now has five goals in four games, cheekily chipped into the middle of the net with four minutes remaining to settle what was, for large parts, a dull game.
It was awarded after debutant Jack Baldwin, who had only been on the field for six minutes, handled Andy Drury’s late free-kick.
Conor Washington almost rescued a point for the Posh in injury time but hit the post from a tight angle.
Crawley came close to scoring twice in the opening seven minutes.
Tubbs had a 15 yard effort pushed over by Olejnik in the second minute and Sullay Kaikai forced a similar save from a free-kick five minutes later.
The game then mellowed until Nicky Ajose forced stopper Paul Jones to save at his near post with a 55th minute effort from eight yards and Britt Assambalonga had a similar effort blocked five minutes later.
Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson believes the defeat typified their entire season.
He said:“If a game of football was to sum up our season this is the one.We’ve lost another game to a team in the bottom ten, albeit a good team.
“They started the first really well but I changed back to the diamond which gave us control.
“It looked like it was going to be nil-nil but unfortunately the referee gave a penalty and that has won the match for them.
“It was a handball, but he's handled it because the striker has pushed him onto it, the referee has to see it, he hasn't and we've lost the game.”