Crawley boss Steve Evans says he would deserve to be “put in a strait jacket” were he not to make Dannie Bulman's loan move permanent.

Bulman is with Reds until January after joining on loan from Oxford United in September to begin his second spell at the club.

In eight appearances he has only been on the losing side once and scored a spectacular volley to set Crawley on their way to a 4-1 win at Mansfield on Saturday which took them back to the top of the Blue Square Bet premier.

Bulman left Reds to join Oxford in May 2009 and helped them win promotion back to the Football League via the play-offs.

But he lost his place after starting the season in the Oxford side and jumped at the chance to join Evans’ ‘Project Promotion’.

Evans said: “I would need to be admitted to a clinic and put in a strait jacket if I said I didn’t want to keep him.

“There is no rush. I will make a recommendation to (co-owners) Bruce Winfield and Susan Carter and leave it up to them but we have an agreement with (Oxford boss) Chris Wilder that if he wants to stay he will and I would have thought Dannie is a player who would like to stay at Crawley.”

It is not just Bulman’s ability in the midfield engine room which impresses Evans.

Evans added: “When we add a player they have to be real quality but also someone who is not going to be a rotten egg in our dressing room.

“That is massively important. We have walked away from doing deals with players after making checks on them.

“Dannie has made a massive contribution to our dressing room and we know all of his strengths and weaknesses and we know him as a person. He is potential son-in-law material – except if I invited round to my house he would probably drink all my beer!

“It has helped that he has come to a club whose objective is promotion. We were Rag A***d Rovers when he was here before and Bully stayed in adversity then when he had better offers to go elsewhere. When he did go to Oxford we understood the decision given the financial situation we were in.”

Assistant boss Paul Raynor saw Saturday’s FA Cup opponents draw 0-0 with Evans’ former club Boston in Blue Square North last night and Evans is expecting a difficult afternoon.

He said: “They have got some decent players and we know it is going to be tough but if they had been at Mansfield on Saturday, as I’m sure they were, they would have been terrified of our second-half performance.”

Meanwhile, Crawley’s under-18s face Charlton Athletic at Welling FC tonight in the first round of the FA Youth Cup (7pm).