Gregory: ‘We’ve underachieved away from home’

Gregory was speaking after watching his side lose their final away game of the season at Bradford 2-1 on Saturday thanks to a late headed goal from Garry Thompson - that after Jamie Proctor had cancelled out Aaron McLean’s opener at Valley Parade.

The Reds boss felt his side deserved at least a point before “messing up” for the winner from a corner with only four minutes of normal time remaining.

The result means Crawley have lost six of their final seven games of the campaign on their travels and Gregory admitted: “It’s been tough on the road, we’ve not performed anywhere near as well as we should have done throughout the course of the season.

“Obviously before I came we had some stunning victories away from home. Milton Keynes stands out, Leyton Orient and a great win at Peterborough 2-0 earlier on in the season.

“For me the concentration next season will need to be on beating teams in the lower half of the league away from home. They’re the places you have to go and win.

“Before we played Leyton Orient I didn’t need to say a thing to motivate them. And then we’ve gone up to places like Oldham and Notts County last Monday and just didn’t get the performances that we can achieve.

“A lot of that has got to be down to me in the way I prepare them, the way I motivate people before we’ve played some of the lesser teams in this league.

“Going to Rotherham (or) Milton Keynes I don’t have to say too much, because they know the importance of the game, they get themselves fired up for it.

“Against the teams in the lower half of the table we have a terrible record, we’d be in the play-offs if we’d been able to get enough points against the teams in the lower half of the table... we need to be much better at it next season.”

Gregory also hailed the impact of Proctor in coming off the bench to score with an excellent lob, but said the striker needed to put in the same level of performance over 90 minutes.

Video coming soon.