STEVE EVANS will step up his efforts to bring in a new face today as Crawley’s problems pile up.

Reds are down to the bare bones for tomorrow’s home game against Salisbury after Barry Cogan joined the list of absentees when he was shown a straight red for an awful lunge on Esmond James which means a three-match ban.

Charlie Ademeno, who will have a scan today after his knee injury flared up again, Danny Forrest and Sam Rents are all sidelined by injury and Eddie Hutchinson is playing through the pain of a sore groin when he should be resting.

With Jefferson Louis on loan at Rusden, Reds were down to their last 14 professionalss on Saturday and that included substitute goalkeeper Nick Jordan.

The prudent housekeeping undertaken in the last few months, allied to the sale of five players in the last year, means the club are on course to be debt-free by the end of the season which is some achievement considering they were in administration three years ago.

Evans has been promised a bigger budget next season but Reds need help now to try and end a run of one win in their last nine games which has left them looking down rather than up the table.

A bid for ex-Albion striker Nathan Elder fell through because the club would not pay the portion of his wages demanded by parent club Shrewsbury.

Evans went in for Salisbury’s prolific Matt Tubbs last week but his cash-strapped employers seem happy to wait until the transfer window when they might be able to attract a sizeable fee, even though creditors are queuing at their door.

Knowing Evans’ luck at the moment, Tubbs will probably get the winner tomorrow for at the moment little is going right for the Scot and his club.

He had no complaints about Cogan’s rash challenge which left his side a man down for virtually all of the second half, describing it as “reckless.”

But he was fuming about Hayes’ 82nd-minute penalty-spot winner and rightly so. The only person in the ground who thought Adam Quinn had fouled James Mulley was referee Gary Jerden.

None of the home players or their fans on the thinly populated terraces appealed but Mr Jerden pointed to the spot and Sean Canham could hardly believe his luck as he scored his second of the game.

As Quinn was the last defender he should have been sent off but significantly he was not even shown a yellow card.

Evans said: “There is no person in the ground who thought it was a penalty apart from the referee. I spoke to the assessor afterwards and he said he will review it but he was walking out of the ground with the referee’s father!

“When the incident is reviewed the ref will probably be marked down but will he worry about that on Sunday morning or when he goes for his Chinese on Saturday night? Probably not.”

Bad decisions are part and parcel of the game but what is really hurting Crawley is their lack of punch up front.

Four of the players who have been sold in the last 12 months were strikers and you could not imagine the likes of Jamie Cook, Jon-Paul Pittman or even Steve Fletcher squandering the opportunities Reds missed in the first half.

Callum Willock was denied by Simon Overland and then betrayed by a heavy first touch when clean through twice while Adam Green made a brilliant last-ditch intervention when Ben Smith seemed set to score.

With Mikey Malcolm relishing a rare start and Smith dictating things in midfield Reds produced their best 45 minutes on the road so far this season yet only turned round level.

Canham nodded in on 32 minutes when Simon Rayner missed his punch trying to clear a corner, only for Smith to level at the second attempt two minutes later after a horrible mis-kick by Green.

Reds went to 3-4-2 after Cogan’s red and kept Hayes at arm’s length until Mr Jerden made his mark. Even then Overland produced a wonderful full-length save to keep out Malcolm’s scorcher and Quinn’s header dropped the wrong side of the post.

Hayes: Overland, Allen-Page, Cadmore (Binns 65), Ruby, Green; James, Mulley, Cochrane, James; Fitzgerald (Marwa 55), S.Canham. Subs not used: El-Abd, Baker, Watkins.

Crawley: Rayner; Wilson, Broadhurst, Quinn, Giles (Rusk 59); Cogan, Hutchinson, Pinault, Smith; Willock (Killeen 85), Malcolm. Subs not used: Napper, Jordan, Huggins.

Sent off: Cogan (foul) Booked: Hutchinson (foul), Wilson (foul)