'Dark arts are part of football' - Crawley star said Wrexham did 'extremely well' to nullify in-form Reds attack

Ollie Palmer scored against his former club to earn a 1-0 win for Wrexham at the Broadfield Stadium on Saturday (October 7), in front of a sell-out crowd.

Despite going down to ten-men with 20 minutes remaining, the visitors held on for a narrow victory. See our Crawley Town player ratings here.

“It’s disappointing to lose as always,” Crawley striker Danilo Orsi said, post-match.

"I felt we put in a good performance but you’ve got to get three points, at the end of the day, and we didn’t manage to do that.

"They went down to 10 men. Once you get a 1-0 lead here, they will naturally sit in as they know how good we are at home.

"You want to put the ball across the line. We created chances, kept the ball and recycled it well.

"You can see how tiring they found it. By the end they were thinking just don’t succeed. We’ve had belief this season and we think we’re going to get one but it didn’t come today.”

Crawley dominated for large periods – and had 25 shots on goal – but failed to score at home for the first time since August. It was also their first home defeat since the 1-0 loss against Gillingham on August 19th.

Scott Linsey’s side scored 20 goals in September – winning five out of six games over the course of the month.

Three of those goals were scored by Orsi, who said he was confident going into the game against Wrexham – after being rested for the trip to Doncaster Rovers on Tuesday (October 3).

“We’re not going to score every game,” the former Grimsby forward – who missed a huge first-half chance said – said. “I had two in two so a bit of a hot streak. I was confident going into it.

"To not score today is disappointing but it happens in football.

“We had chances in the first half, myself included. On another day, they go in.

"We’ll keep going with the performance and keep playing the way we’re playing because we know we will win more than we lose.”

Scott Lindsey told reporters that Wrexham used the ‘dark arts’ to full effect to close out their first win in four games.

Orsi was asked if that made life difficult for him and his teammates.

"Yes and no,” he replied. “We had a lot of the ball, broke them down a few times, created a few big chances.

"Dark arts is part of football and even more so in League Two. When you’re 1-0 up away from home, we would do the same.

"It wasn’t anything we didn’t expect and haven’t come up across in the past. Credit to them, they did it extremely well especially towards the end.”

Orsi said the defeat will not deter Crawley, who have impressed this season with their attractive style of football. They remain eighth despite two defeats this week.

The 27-year-old added: “Today hurts, tomorrow it’s probably going to hurt. Monday is a new week.

"We enjoy the way we play. The gaffer and staff put in hard work during the week. If you don’t come away with three points at the weekend, after a good performance, you’re down about it but we’ll work hard for next week.

“We’ve had a good start but it’s just a start and we need to keep it going. It was the 12th game today so still early days.

"We were up against a team tipped for promotion and we were tipped for relegation but we’re still up the top end of the table. It’s a credit to the club as a whole.”