Crawley Town boss on new signings, trying to get a new striker in and why Chris Galley needs a couple of weeks off

Crawley Town fans have criticised the clubs transfer window after appearing to have replaced experienced players with young signings and limited EFL pedigree.

Tom Nichols, Jake Hessenthaler, George Francomb and Glenn Morris were all moved on over the last month after years of service for the club, whilst James Balagizi and Ellery Balcombe were recalled from their loan spells.

Coming through the door were Ben Gladwin, Kellen Gordon, Jack Spong (on loan from Brighton), Ryan Schofield (23, on loan from Huddersfield Town), Jack Roles (23, from Woking), and Roshan Greensall (19).

“Haven’t improved the squad at all,” said Mighty Mitchell, a fan of Crawley on social media. “You can comfortably say it’s been weakened. Signed two players who have EFL pedigree, the rest are unknown and untested. Hugely disappointing. WAGMI (Crawley’s owners) have cut costs and not invested back into the team.”

Out of the signings from 2023, the ‘EFL pedigree’ players are Ben Gladwin who signed from Swindon Town and Kellen Gordon who joined from Mansfield Town. Those two have 297 combined EFL appearances whilst the others, have altogether featured 75 times across England's professional leagues.

In response to fan criticism, speaking just days after deadline day, Lindsey said: “Well Ben Gladwin is not a younger player. Kellen Gordon is not a younger player. So we can argue whether we’ve let some older ones go but we’ve signed two experienced players there in my opinion.

“And Ben Gladwin doesn’t just have experience, he’s arguably one of the best midfield players in the division. He comes with a wealth of experience. He’s a leader, a captain, he’s brilliant around the building, he’s almost like having a coach out on the pitch.

“Kellen Gordon has come from a really big club in this division, has reached the play-offs on a number of occasions and comes with a wealth of experience himself in my opinion.”

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Nichols was shuttled out of the Crawley squad when Crawley received a ‘serious offer’ from a relegation rival, at the start of December, despite his 109 games and 29 goals for the Reds. Alongside fellow long-standing members such as Morris, Francomb and Hessenthaler not given a chance in 2023, fans were concerned with the strategy moving forward.

“With the supporters, I’ve seen it before where they build a relationships and alliances to players who have been here a long time and I understand it,” added Lindsey. “They feel connected to those players so when they come and go they get saddened, which is understandable.

“But then new players come in and to start with, they’re not sure about them. Once they’ve seen them play over a period of five or six games and understand that they’re good if not better that the ones that went out, then they start building relationships with them, It’s almost like a cycle. In football, there is changes to be made for the better, and I think eventually it (recent outgoings) will be for the better.”

Crawley won their first game under Lindsey last Saturday 3-2 against high-flying Salford City when defence (Dion Conroy), midfield (Teddy Jenks) and attack (Dom Telford) all scored. Nevertheless, Lindsey was keen to admit they looked to get a forward in to bolster their attacking options.

“We tried to get a forward in. I am not going to try and hide the fact that we did try. For whatever reason we didn’t. When I look at the top end of the pitch, I do feel that we’ve got goals in abundance up there. I back Dom Telford, (Ashley) Nadesan and Remi (Aramide Oteh) to be up there with the best in the division. There’s not real strength in depth there, but we’ve got what we’ve got.”

Telford is now Crawley’s top scorer this season with seven in 24 games, whilst last season, he finished as League Two’s Golden Boot winner. Meanwhile, Nadesan has six goals from 25 games and Oteh has one from his 14 appearances.

“We had targets throughout the window that we worked extremely hard to get,” said Lindsey. “I was really pleased with the ones we did get. There were ones we missed out on, through whatever reason, through circumstance, but it wasn’t through the want of trying.

“There was a lot of hard work that went in, Chris Galley probably needs a couple of weeks off work now. He’s worked extremely hard through this window and put in; a lot of effort and a lot of credit has got to go to him. I think we’ve ended up with some really good players here.”