Dean Saunders admitted a half-time roasting inspired Crawley to come from behind and claim a vital 3-2 win at Port Vale.

This was a second successive victory for the Reds and lifted them to within two points of safety.

They twice trailed but fought back with goals from Anthony Wordsworth, Izale McLeod and Richard Wood.

Saunders said: “I wasn’t happy with the two goals we conceded, from set-plays again. It takes time to iron all these things out when you are a manager and I have only been here a couple of months.

“When we conceded the goal after three minutes it was soul-destroying.

“I had a bit of a go at them at half-time. I gave them a bit of a roasting. Sometimes you get performances like that when Saturday/Tuesday, they put that much effort into Saturday’s game that sometimes they are a bit flat.

“We started the game badly but second half we came out and I thought we played really well.

“We have got 40 points now. Mathematically you shouldn’t get relegated with 50 points so we need three more wins.”