'Crawley plight won't help attract right boss'

Crawley Town's current plight won't help them attract the sort of manager they need, former boss Tony Vessey says.

The Reds are bottom of the EFL with nine points from 12 matches in League Two and were knocked out of the FA Cup on Sunday by part-time Wimborne, a side three tiers below them.

Former Leeds boss Kevin Blackwell is in interim charge at Broadfield after the departure of Colin Kazim-Richards last month and has picked up four points from his two league games in charge but has stressed his tenure will be a temporary one.

After the EFL Trophy defeat at Brentford under-21s on Tuesday, former Crawley manager and captain Tony Vessey told BBC Radio Sussex: "No manager, bottom of the league, out of the cup, hopefully things can only improve from here.

"Hopefully a new manager will come in soon, some time this week.

"It doesn't help, the position we are in and the form we have been showing, to attract the kind of manager we're hoping for. Does that point to yet another Premier League academy manager taking his first job as a manager in the Football League, hopefully not.

"Hopefully we can get somebody who has experience of getting teams out of the position we are in, getting us up the table and trying to get some kind of stability around the club moving forward."

Since John Yems left the club in April 2022 after more than two years at the helm, 11 different managers have been in the Crawley dugout and Vessey said: "This appointment has got to be correct. Kevin criticised the recruitment the other day - are we going to have yet another 10-12-player turnaround in the next transfer window?

"You need an actual manager, not an interim in place, if you're even contemplating doing that yet again.

"How many times can we get through it and still get points and a settled team throughout the season? It's certainly been a rollercoster for the past two seasons."