Crawley Town 1 Leyton Orient 0: Goalkeepers’ clean sheet saves Reds

The result was their third successive victory and lifted Reds out of the relegation zone for the first time in 2015.

Reds fielded an unchanged team with Lanre Oyebanjo on the bench having recoverred from a calf injury.

Orient made two changes with Haywards Heath based Dean Cox coming in on the left wing and Marvin Barltey in central midfield as Jobi McAnuff and Bradley Pritchard were on the bench.

With their confidence boosted by back-to-back away wins, Crawley got off to the better start.

They should have taken the lead in the tenth minute when Mathia Pogba played in Izale McLeod who ran into the area, shooting across the face of goal as the ball rolled inches wide.

Anthony Wordsworth was set-up for a chance from a long-throw by Ryan Dickson but his shot did not have much power on it and it hit a defender.

Orient then responded with a succession of corners and shots but were denied by brilliant work by keeper Lewis Price.

As they cranked up the pressure, Price did well to keep the ball out from a goalmouth scramble, turning around Darius Henderson for a corner.

But in the process he suffered an injury and had to be treated on the pitch for several minutes.

Price recovered and was kept busy and tipped over a storming 25-yard shot from Cox and then stopped an awkard shot from the right hand side by topscorer Chris Dagnall.

It was end-to-end stuff as the game progressed towards half-time and having withstood Orient’s onslaught, created some pressure of their own.

Gavin Tomlin did well to create a chance with a turn and shot but put it narrowly wide.

Crawley took the lead on 32 minutes from the penalty spot after Luke O’Neill brought down Pogba.

McLeod scored his 18th goal of the season from the spot-kick, putting keeper Alex Cisak the wrong way with his stuttering run-up with a placement to the left.

At the start of the second half Brian Jensen replaced Price in the Crawley goal because he was suffering from concussion.

The second half got off an exciting start as Tomlin took a shot straight away which went wide.

Marvin Elliott was brought on for Pogba, going into midfield as Tomlin pushed up front alongside McLeod.

Jensen was soon brought into action, doing well to deny Marvin Bartley with a diving save.

Crawley fans and players were not happy with referee Andy Davies for his decisions and there was a big cheer when he finally awarded the home side a free-kick.

Former Crawley loanee Josh Wright also fired a shot over the bar as Orient pushed forward.

Orient made three substitutions as they looked to step up to get an equaliser and Jensen made light work of catching a long-range shot fired by Andrea Dossena.

O’Neill sent a free-kick over to Dagnall but the Orient striker couldn’t control his header and nodded over the bar.

The visitors continued to atack in the closing stages and forced Jensen into action again in the final minute as O’Neill’s free-kick missed everyone and made Jensen to make a vital catch.

REDS: Price (Jensen 46), Dickson, Bradley, McLeod, Young, Fowler, Tomlin (Oyebanjo 90), Ward, Wordsworth, Pogba (Elliott 61), Wood

Unused subs: Edwards, Smith, Morgan, Bawling

ORIENT: Cisak, Cuthbert, Cox (McAnuff 69), Clarke, Wright, Bartley (Mooney 66), Dagnall, Henderson (Jay Simpson 69), O’Neill, Dossena, Hedges

Unused subs: Sawyer, Baudry, Pritchard, Woods

REFEREE: Andy Davies

ATTENDANCE: 3,255 (823 away)