Barker calls Crawley "naive" as late goals deny them win (From The Argus)

Barker calls Crawley "naive" as late goals deny them win

5:41pm Saturday 16th March 2013 in Sport By Steve Hollis

Crawley boss Richie Barker called his side "naive" after they let a 2-0 lead slip in the dying minutes to draw 2-2 at Walsall.

Goals from Jamie Proctor and Paul Hayes seemed to have earned Crawley a crucial win in their hopes of making a late push for the play-offs.

But Jamie Paterson pulled one back in the 89th minute before Will Grigg broke Crawley's hearts two minutes into stoppage time.

Barker said: "It is tought to take because everything we were doing was working. We had a game plan and it was working but the disappointing thing is that both goals were avoidable because they came from things we talked about in training.

"We talked about showing Jamie Paterson down the line and he comes inside to score. Then they created a two versus one down the line to cross for the equaliser.

"Fine details were always going to win us or lose us the game and that turned out to be true. I am not going to say the players have only got themselves to blame because they have been fantastic but they have got to learn very quickly."

Mat Sadler wore the captain's armband on his return to his former club and echoed those feelings.

He added: "For 89 minutes we completely dominated and scored two good goals and I couldn't see anything other than it being an away win.

"Then a deflected shot goes in and suddenly it is panic stations to a degree but I  still couldn't see it coming.

"It is sickening to consider the points we have dropped in the last few games. We don't want that to be a defining moment of our season but unless we start seeing games out it will."