Scott Lindsey felt his Crawley side were worthy winners after they won their first away game of the season at Cambridge.
The Reds have won both of their Sky Bet League One matches following promotion as well as progressing in the EFL Cup, while Cambridge are yet to pick up a point and also exited the cup on Tuesday.
Ade Adeyemo made amends for missing a huge chance by netting the winner four minutes from time, the only goal of a fixture where both sides had been wasteful to that point.
“I’m really pleased with the second-half performance, I thought we were really, really good. Outstanding, in fact,” said Lindsey afterwards.
“I thought we controlled the game. First half, not so much. I felt that it was a little bit more of a transitional game which kind of doesn’t suit us, we want it to be controlled, dominant.
“So we spoke about that at half-time and I thought second half we were outstanding.
“First half we didn’t create anywhere near enough; we had chances to shoot, we turned them down. Second half we really took them to task. We were really good with the ball and the performance was really good in the end.
“Ade took his goal fantastically. I thought he had taken it too wide at one stage but he slotted it perfectly. I thought we deserved it as well. It’s really good to get off the mark away from home.”
Garry Monk felt Cambridge lost their way, having failed to capitalise on a dominant first half where they were unable to break through.
“From probably the 60-minute mark onwards, to me it looked like we felt a bit sorry for ourselves, that we hadn’t got that reward of goals for our opportunities that we created,” said Monk.
“When you’re playing games like that and they are tight games, quite evenly-matched games, it’s about who can submit each other. For 60 minutes, definitely the first 45, we were probably submitting them a bit more, then we suffered.
“Then, ultimately, although they didn’t create loads in the last 30 minutes, we stopped doing what we were doing, stopped being brave, stopped getting on the ball, stopped progressing the ball to good situations and ultimately we suffered the cruellest blow which is obviously the goal.
“It probably gave them a boost as well, the fact we hadn’t punished them, and we stopped doing exactly what we were doing. That’s something for us to learn and work with the players very quickly.
“We understand that ultimately results are king and points are key for us.”
