By Jan-Malte Wagener.

Consistency is the key for Crawley in today’s League Two clash with pointless Cambridge United.

Reds have lost their first two matches of the campaign, even though they dominated periods of both games.

Now defender Mark Connolly, 25, has called for a 90-minute performance - rather than giving themselves a mountain to climb.

Reds are 23rd in the table, one place behind Cambridge.

Connolly told The Argus: “I think it’s about consistency. We can’t start a game slowly, we can’t have a first half being 1-0 or 2-0 down and then fighting to come back – we need a good performance for 90 minutes.

“Last year it was the complete opposite - good first half and poor second half. So it’s getting the balance right.

“If you take the physical side away from it, I think it’s more the mental side where we’ve got to be switched on.

“We’ve got to help each other and talk to each other.

“People say it’s the easy part of the game but sometimes it can be the toughest part.

“And I think that is the big thing we need to do as a team is we need to be more consistent in our performance for 90 minutes instead of 60 or 70 minutes.”

Connolly rejected a suggestion that Reds have defensive struggles after they conceded a total of four goals in two league matches, plus five in the Carabao Cup defeat at Birmingham.

He added: “It’s funny. When you concede goals, everyone looks at the defenders. It’s a team, as a team we need to defend. “Defensively I think there have been a few goals that have been a little bit sloppy.

“Teams haven’t really broken through us. Defensively we feel quite comfortable but we as a team just need to keep a clean sheet and also score goals.

“We really do work to win every game like we did at Cheltenham, like we did against Port Vale and we want to win today.

“We will not be setting up to get a point. If it ends up being a point then there will be a point on board and we will move on.

“But we are fully focused to go and win the game and do the best we can.”