Crawley Town boss reveals tactical change for key player against Peterborough and praises young defender

Nick Tsaroulla tracks back against Peterborough United. Picture: David Lowndes/Peterborough Telegraph

But on Tuesday night at Peterborough United in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy, Tsaroulla was moved to the right – and as expected the 24-year-old made a success with some penetrating runs inside and scoring a brilliant goal from 25 yards.

And after the game Lindsey revealed that tactical change had been in the pipeline for a while. "We've worked on it for a few weeks now in training,” he said. “We've spoke about it as coaches and staff a couple of months ago when it first got mentioned.

“We feel that it gives us a different attacking option. If we have inverted wingers, where they come in the pitch, we could link play together and of course you saw Nick come inside and score. The idea is for a lefty to play on the right and comes in the pitch and a right footed player to come in from the left and I thought Nick and Ade [Adeyemo] did excellent tonight.”

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Another player who impressed at Peterborough was Joy Mukena. The former Watford and St Albans defender has started every game in this competition and despite making lots of changes, Lindsey stuck with the 24-year-old.

He was given a torrid time in the first half by Ephron Mason-Clark but he grew into the game and snuffed out that threat in the second half.

He also pulled off a brilliant goal line block to deny sub Joel Randall late on. And Lindsey was impressed with Mukena’s performance.

He said: “Joy Mukena played against a top, top player who rinses fullbacks and outside centre halves almost every weekend, he’s an outstanding player. Joy contained him, more so in the second half than the first but it was a great experience for Joy and what we want to do with him is make sure that we give him more exposure against good players and good sides like this. And you know, he’ll be a better player for that tonight.”