Crawley Town 1 City 1

Lee Holmes strikes late to gives City a deserved point and stretched their unbeaten run to 11 games in all competitions as they put in a high-energy, battling display at Crawley Town to take a point.

The hosts, who had won six out of their eight Sky Bet League Two homes games this season, took the lead just after the hour mark when Filipe Morais curled home a shot from just inside the box but Matt Taylor’s men battled back superbly to level through Lee Holmes and came closest to winning the match late on when Lee Martin had an effort cleared off the line.

City manager Matt Taylor made two changes to the starting XI as leading scorer Jayden Stockley, who suffered through illness in the days leading up to the match, dropped to the bench along with Holmes. That meant Matt Jay and Lee Martin with both recalled to the side.

However, there was a further disruption to City’s plans when Hiram Boateng, originally named in the starting XI, dropped out in the warm up to be replaced by Jordan Tillson.

Not to be deterred though, City started the brighter and pressed well from the front forcing a home side that had scored in every league match at home since Boxing Day last year, into plenty of mistakes.

Jonathan Forte, who produced some good hold up play early on, was first to go close as he pounced on a loose ball and fired over from 20 yards inside the opening minute of the match. Then Jake Taylor sent an inviting ball across the face of goal that nobody could turn home.

However, after that, it was a half of very few chances. Crawley began to dominate possession without troubling Christy Pym, while City were unfortunate with a couple of offside decisions before Jay sent in a low cross that Lee Martin was a yard away from turning home at the near post.

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