Byfield insists Crawley were focused on game after defeat

Caretaker manager Darren Byfield insisted Crawley’s players were not affected by the situation surrounding the troubled club, following their 3-1 League Two defeat at Stevenage.

Byfield became the fourth person to take charge of a Crawley match this season after the shock departure of manager Matthew Etherington after just 32 days in charge on Thursday.

There was the bizarre sight of him being joined in the dugout by co-chairman Preston Johnson, which drew the ire of the away end, who loudly protested against their club’s owners throughout the Red Devils’ third defeat in a row.

Byfield said: “I don’t know too much about everything. I said the same to the players: don’t let anything outside of the game interfere with what we’re doing out there.

“I’m the same, I’m here, Preston has flown in because of what’s happened with Matty and Simon (Davies) and shown he is dedicated to the football club.

“I know the fans are upset but whatever I’m told to do here with the players, I’ll do to the best of my ability.

“The fans pay their money, we clap them, we listen to what’s going on and we just try and implement what we want from the boys.

“Obviously it was only yesterday (Etherington’s departure), so we didn’t get a chance to do much work in possession, out of possession, on the shape, stuff like that.

“That’s why I have to thank the players even more because they only had about an hour training with us.”

Stevenage led after 10 minutes when Jordan Roberts finished after running onto Jake Reeves’ long ball before Carl Piergianni doubled their advantage by heading in Luther James-Wildin’s cross.

Piergianni scored his second header when he powerfully met Reeves’ cross, with Dom Telford then notching a late consolation for Crawley from the penalty spot.

Stevenage boss Steve Evans, who led Crawley into the EFL in 2011, said: “We can’t stop our players reading what’s been online for a couple of days about the situation with Crawley.

“I asked our players to ignore it, but sometimes you can’t get it out of their heads, but I thought we played really well in patches, not so good in others.

“Our quality was a little bit missing at certain times tonight, but you cannot fault what they’ve given us.

“They’re an incredibly fit group and they’ve gone to the end at Leyton Orient and they’ve had to go to the end today, so we’re really pleased.

“I leave here with real genuine thoughts that Crawley Town sort themselves out because it’s a club that’s deep in my heart.

“They’ll never get out of my heart and I had some of the best days of my life being manager of that football club.”