Crawley 2-5 Carlisle: Apologetic Scott Lindsey issues damning verdict of 'horrendous, embarrassing, unacceptable' Reds performance

The Reds were 4-0 down at half-time and it could have been worse after a dismal-first half. They improved after the break and scored two consolation goals either side of a fifth Carlisle goal. Click here to read our match report.

Crawley boss Scott Lindsey was asked to assess his team’s performance after the match.

“It was horrendous, really poor,” he replied. “I want to apologise to the fans who paid to watch that. It wasn’t good.

"It was school-like defending. You can talk about tactics and formations until you’re blue in the face but we didn’t show much desire or passion today to get anything from the game. So yeah, I’m really disappointed.”

Crawley have now failed to win any of the five matches since Lindsey’s first game in charge – a 3-2 home win over Salford City.

The former Swindon manager said there was ‘lots’ wrong with his new team’s performance ‘in terms of want, will and determination’.

He added: “The running stats will show that as well. They [Carlisle] just wanted it more than we did which I can’t accept and I won’t accept it.

"I apologise to the fans. Apart from the goals, they ran harder than us, jumped on every second ball, they won every ball at the top of the pitch.

"Joe Garner is 5ft 9 and he won every single header so it’s unacceptable. All of them were soft goals. We let them in far too easily.

"They seemed to skip round us far too easy on the halfway line. It’s too easy to score against us at the moment. The goals we conceded were embarrassing.”

Lindsey said there were some ‘choice words said’ at half-time and it led to an improved performance.

"We made a change quite early on and changed the shape from 3412 to 4231 and put Rami (Aramide Oteh) on.

"He ran into the box a few times and got us up the pitch. I thought it was the right thing to do. We seemed to get more control in their half of the pitch.

"I felt there were goals in the game at the other end of the pitch. I always felt we would score goals and we could have potentially got more than we got.

"The goals are a positive. We put the ball in their box when we got forward. We kept going but it's too little too late.”

The third successive defeat means Crawley have won only one of their last 10 games and remain second from bottom.

The Reds now have 16 games left of the season to avoid relegation. Lindsey said: “They’re all tough games. The teams at the top – they are all the same.

"We have to compete and play our way. We have to keep going. We've got to win a big chunk of the [remaining games].

"I'm pretty confident that, with the players we've got and the games we've got coming up, that we'll do that.”