Harrogate Town 'should have scored more' during Crawley Town defeat, insists Simon Weaver

The Sulphurites had plenty of chances to take full control of the game after George Thomson fired them into a 26th-minute lead at Wetherby Road via a fine edge-of-the-box finish with his weaker left foot.

But Matty Daly, Dean Cornelius and Jack Muldoon were all guilty of directing good scoring opportunities too close to visiting goalkeeper Corey Addai as the Red Devils struck twice in the space of eight second-half minutes to turn the game on its head.

And neither Josh March nor Anthony O’Connor could apply a finishing touch to Thomson’s inviting free-kick at 2-1, despite having a gaping goal at their mercy.

Thus, despite being encouraged by the fact that his team did look much more of a threat than they have in recent weeks, Weaver was ultimately left to wonder what might have been after seeing Town’s winless run extended into a sixth game.

“There were more balls in the box, certainly, and there’s been an absence of that in recent games, but today we should have scored more,” the Harrogate boss reflected.

“There were gilt-edged chances, there were gilt-edged chances falling on the edge of the box as well.

"So that can't be forgotten, the step forward in terms of putting the opposition under more pressure by not trying to perfect the game. But still, there was a side-foot pass edge of the box by one of our players, a gifted player, but that's not hurting anyone with 30 seconds left to play.

"You've got to put the ball between the six-yard box and penalty spot and put more pressure on.

"The game has evolved and changed, you know, in terms of the first two thirds of the game, but you still see countless goals scored in the Football League by simply putting it in the danger area, where it goes in off people’s bodies.”

On his side’s overall display, Weaver added: “It's frustrating really because I thought we'd earned the right, through our first-half performance, to go and build on that and get a good home win.

"And to be honest, I’d have settled for a scruffy 1-0 in not easy conditions with the wind. The first half was a bit of a timid affair but we did enough to deserve the one-goal lead.

"But the second half, we just can’t get going. Everyone said the right things at half-time, but very few players did enough in terms of the energy side of it to really make us believe that we weren't falling into a drifting situation in the game.

“I was thinking that we might have to make four or five changes 55 minutes in, and that's hard to fathom because later on when we're really throwing the kitchen sink and everyone's ultra positive because time's running out, we really tried to put them to the sword and test them.

"The energy was there after 85 minutes, but there was almost apathy and real tentative state of mind just after half-time and we have got to get to the bottom of it.”

Saturday’s defeat means that Harrogate are now winless in six matches and have taken just two points from the last 18 on offer.

As a result, they now find themselves 14th in the League Two standings.