Crawley tried what others have not against MK Dons, says Lindsey
The Crawley Town boss spoke after his side’s 1-1 draw with his old club MK Dons
Scott Lindsey felt his Crawley Town side showed more intent than other have this season when taking on MK Dons, with their reward being a 1-1 draw at the Broadfield Stadium on Tuesday night.
The ex-Dons head coach had his players fired up for the clash, coming off the back of three defeats at the start of the season, with both sides going at it hammer and tongs in the opening 45 minutes. Ade Adeyemo netted the opener in the seventh minute of stoppage time at the end of the first-half, the first league goal Dons have conceded under Paul Warne’s watch, before Luke Offord equalised with 20 minutes to go to split the pot.
Proving to be the toughest test so far for Dons this season, Lindsey said he felt his Reds showed more intent than perhaps others have against Warne’s men.
He said: “The one thing that impressed me with MK Dons is the fact they’ve kept clean sheets in their first three games, and their xG against is really low.
“I firmly believe that’s because teams don’t ever go at them in my opinion. And we had a go tonight and we created a lot of chances. I felt that there was some real gilt-edge chances that we potentially should have tucked away.
“They did too, I know that, but what I’m saying is there’s some big chances there, but we went for it. We went to win that game tonight, and I think it was clear seeing that potentially the teams that they’ve played in the past have not done that. Maybe they’ve sat deeper and played for draws or whatever, but we certainly weren’t going to do that.”
Both sides had excellent chances to add to their tally too, with Dons academy product Kabongo Tshimanga, now at Crawley, blazing over from close range, as did Kaheim Dixon, while Rushian Hepburn-Murphy, Callum Paterson and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing all had great chances for the visitors.
Speaking afterwards, Lindsey said: “When I shook Paul Warne’s hand at the end there, he said ‘what a game of football!’ I thought it was two good sides, kind of different styles going at it, both trying to win the game.
“I’m proud of us tonight, because I think it’s hard when results have not gone our way, certainly in the last three games, then you come up against a team like MK Dons, who have obviously signed a lot of players not of the level, but the level above, then you hope that we still have the confidence to take them on, and I thought we did.
“I thought we were the better team over the period of the game. I thought, certainly first half, we dominated possession, created some good chances, albeit they did too.”