After seeing his men snatch a point through Marcus Richardson's injury time goal, Crawley Town boss John Yems commented, "We deserved a point and I didn't think we were going to get one, but we kept plugging away in the second half.

"I was extremely disappointed with the performance in the first half when Cambridge were first to every ball. We gave them a poor goal and they are also battling for their lives at the moment and it was probably more important to them to take three points from this fixture than it was for us. As it is, we are still above them and with games in hand.

"We perhaps were too apprehensive before the game and worried too much about the opposition. They had a game plan and stuck with it but I do think as the game went on the doubts that the last couple of performances had sowed in their players minds may have played on them."

Praising Paul Crichton on his return from loan at King's Lynn, Yems added, "Their keeper had a great game pulling off three or four saves that kept them in the game, but we stuck at it and kept pressing them back and Marcus took his goal well.

"We know we are capable of playing a lot better than that so perhaps in hindsight this was a great result for us."

Yems concluded, "Cambridge proved they were a lot better than the last two scorelines have indicated. They must be worried that all the clubs around them have games in hand but you never give up hope in this game."

Former United striker Marcus Richardson also had positive words for the club he has played for twice in his career:

"Paul Crichton was on form and made some great saves but I kept plugging away and right at the death I managed to get a well directed header off that 'Crichts' just couldn't get to.

"The header before had more power on it and I honestly thought that was in. As the second half wore on we had more and more of the play and Cambridge were getting deeper and deeper in defence.

"At this club with the likes of Tony Scully we are going to create chances, and to be fair a lot of them dropped to me today and I felt one would go in before full-time.

"There's always pressure on you as a striker when you've yet to open your account, but I'm old enough to handle that and hopefully now more will follow and we can secure our place in the league for next year."

Richardson added, "I hope that Cambridge can avoid the drop as well.  They were the club that gave me the chance to be a professional footballer and I've got a lot to thank them for."

[Match report] [Fixture List] [League Table]

Interview by David Gray

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