11 December 2021

John Yems hails injury-hit Crawley after win at Leyton Orient

11 December 2021

Crawley manager John Yems heaped praise on his depleted squad after their 2-1 away win over Leyton Orient

It was only their second victory in 11 matches in all competitions but the visitors were good value for their triumph.

George Francomb put them in front at half-time and although Orient equalised through Glenn Morris’ own goal, the Red Devils’ leading scorer Kwesi Appiah netted his ninth goal of the season to secure the win.

“I’ve been accused of moaning about all the injures we’ve got but we have, we’ve got loads of injuries,” Yems admitted.

“Those players today are the only fit ones at the football club. Credit to everybody, we knew that we had to change obviously against Kenny’s (Jackett) team. They would be hard and horrible to beat and they would try and play football if we let them.

“So we changed things around to give them a couple of things to worry about and credit to all the boys. It’s not shape and all that which wins games.

“It’s courage and determination to have a go, which the boys showed today, and if you do that, then hopefully, you get something at the end of it.

“Some of those boys were playing their first 90 minutes in six weeks.

“But they do have a fighting spirit and they are such a good bunch of boys. If we are going to get beaten, then we want to go down with a fight and you can be assured that this bunch will always have a go.”

Orient boss Kenny Jackett admitted his disappointment at the outcome as he saw his side beaten for the first time in nine home matches in League Two.

“Crawley deserved their win,” Jackett said.

“Their forward players in particular gave us a lot of problems and for us it was difficult to give our front two the supply that we have been doing in recent weeks.

“Disappointingly where we got back into the game through the equaliser which has some luck about it, they have gone straight down our end, created a really good chance and finished it well which gave them something to hang onto.

“So we put ourselves into bad situations with the goals we conceded. They worked our keeper more than we worked theirs so I had no complaints with the result.

“We lost Tom James in the first half where he has pulled his hamstring and the way he came off it looked like a bad one but these things happen. Injuries will happen and as a squad we have to overcome that blow.

“We changed the shape as we were struggling at the back as their front three got down the sides and we couldn’t get on the ball to dictate the play.”

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