'˜Humiliation to Mansfield Town still fresh in Crawley's minds,' says Simon Walton

Walton was part of the Crawley side that lost 4-0 at the One Call Stadium in September, as goals from Nathan Thomas, Mitchell Rose, Matt Green and Craig Westcarr gave Stags first home win of the campaign.

But Walton believes Crawley have improved greatly and have revenge in their sights.

He said: “We played them during our bad times so to speak and we got a good hiding and it was one of the worst performances.

“We’ve matured and have got a lot better since that day and have come a long way, although the last two results may not suggest it.

“They’ve got experience, they’ve got a big physical team but we know what we are doing.

“It plays on your mind. You’ll never forget a humiliation like that (losing 4-0) and at the same time it’s a game we are looking forward to and looking for the win.”

Consecutive defeats against Yeovil Town and Notts County in their last two have caused concern to swell among sections of the support.

Walton is however confident they can return to their previous form at home, starting against Mansfield on Saturday, after a team chat on the training ground.

He said: “We’ve had a couple of flat performances as the gaffer (Mark Yates) described it but on the whole we’ve been pretty good at home.

“We’ve had a good week’s training, we have been back on grass and we know what we’ve got to do. We are in a good place going forward.

“We know what we’ve got to do to keep moving up that league.

“At home we’ve made it difficult for sides. Notts County came to steal a point and that’s a credit to how we’ve played.

“We had a discussion among ourselves and have worked out what we’ve been doing wrong. We’ve got away from how we have been playing before.

“We’ve started fast, we’ve been relentless in our play. We are not Portsmouth, we are not going to pass teams off the pitch.

“Having a high work-rate and doing the ugly stuff and we want to get back to basics really.

“If you look at the players we had out at the weekend who played they have plenty on experience and shouldn’t be churning out performances like that.

“We are well aware of the standards needed to be successful in this league. Obviously we’d like to be higher up the table.

“We’ve got good players, we’ve got successful players. There’s certainly no crisis we are not panicking but in the last couple of games we have let ourselves and the gaffer down.”