'No disgrace' - Crawley Town boss proud after his side dominate against Peterborough United in EFL Trophy

Reds took the lead through Nick Tsaroulla but Posh bounced back through Harrison Burrows and Ephron Mason-Clark to make it 2-1 at half-time. Lindsey’s men dominated the second half but Posh keeper Jed Steer pulled off a couple of saves to deny them an equaliser.

Crawley had 57% possession and 13 attempts on goal and made 137 more passes than Darren Ferguson’s side but they could not get that vital equaliser that could have taken the game to penalties.

Lindsey was proud of his side’s efforts. "It's no disgrace, losing to a top League One side,” he said. “We dominated the game in both halves and I thought were outstanding.

“If it wasn’t for their keeper we probably go through. Obviously they had chances as well, I don’t want to be disrespectful, but I thought we were outstanding against a team who normally dominate other teams.

“I wanted us to really step forward and go again after scoring but they scored too quickly after our first goal, and it killed our momentum a little bit.”

SEE ALSO Crawley Town player ratings: three 8/10s for Reds but 7/10 for defender who gifted Peterborough winning goal | See full match recap here

Reds could have had a penalty in the first half when Klaidi Lolos appeared to have been brought down. Lindsey had no doubts, he said: “We had a stonewall penalty on Lolos, the referee was positioned brilliantly, I don't understand why he didn't give it. They will say they should have been a penalty as well, but I haven’t seen that back yet. But I've got to be honest with you, our players were brilliant tonight, they pressed really well, they were aggressive at the top of the pitch. I thought we built our play out from the back brilliantly. We turned the ball over for the second goal, which obviously is a disappointment, but that's the way we play. But I'm really proud of the players even though it’s disappointing to go out because we wanted to progress.

"You can’t play that well and lose. I felt we can be more aggressive, we are a little bit nice at times but I can’t fault the players, they were brilliant.”

The Reds seemed to lack a cutting edge in attack but Lindsey believes it was down to their keeper why his side did not score. “Their keeper made some unbelievable saves for them tonight,” he said.

" So I disagree we weren’t ruthless. I think that we got him behind their line a few times. There's a couple of times where we could do better in the final action like when Ade [Adeyemo] shot over the bar where it was almost an open goal in many ways, Rolesy [Jack Roles] gets in right near the end and the keeper makes an unbelievable save. So listen, we have created chances tonight for sure.”

Crawley has done well in this competition beating Charlton, Aston Villa u21s and Bristol Rovers and it has shown that Lindsey has depth in this squad. "That's why I'm gutted that we've bowed out tonight because this competition has been brilliant for us. You could see we're pushing towards the end there, but I thought we were brilliant. And I thought we dominated the ball and I thought that we were the better side.”