Exeter City’s second half siege in stunning comeback with late drama
“It was relentless, a real siege on their goal, and we could have scored more. I still think it is two points dropped and a game we should have won”
Exeter City produced a stunning fightback from 4-1 down to snatch a late point at home to Crawley Town – but manager Gary Caldwell felt it should have been all three.
The Grecians looked down and out after a miserable first half at St James Park when they went in 4-1 behind, but despite the scoreline and performance, there was belief the game was not over – and so it proved.
Panutche Camara had fired the visitors in front, but after Exeter equalised through Millenic Alli, three goals in eight minutes from Will Swann, Tola Showunmi and Armando Quitrina had the Red Devils 4-1 up at half-time. But Exeter laid siege to the Crawley goal after the break and they managed to snatch a point.
Firstly Vincent Harper curled in a stunning strike, then Ryan Woods scored straight from a corner. Exeter had countless chances before in stoppage-time, Demetri Mitchell scored a screamer from distance to make it 4-4.
The first half wasn’t good enough,” Caldwell said. “I picked the wrong team, I have to take responsibility for that, but players have to take responsibility for their running and their performance.
“We conceded really bad goals, were too easy to play against and we gave ourselves an absolute mountain to climb at half-time. But all credit to the players, they climbed that mountain and we could have won the game. The energy we played with, the Big Bank sucking the ball into the net and we have to take that momentum into Wycombe but that first half was nowhere near good enough.
“It’s a busy period of games but I picked the wrong team based on the performance maybe too many changes and our connections and links within the team weren’t right. We conceded goals we won’t concede very often, goals we won’t concede very often, but our performance led to those goals.
“We needed to do something drastic but were calm at half-time and changed the shape to a 4-4-2 and I said to the players it was down to them. We were relentless in that second half, we created so many chances, and that was down to the players and energy and bravery and we kept going.
“We fully deserved the draw, possibly deserved the win with the chances we created. I said to the players at half-time that the next goal was really big because it creates momentum. We knew Crawley would be vulnerable because you don’t know what to do and they wouldn’t know whether to attack or sit off and the way we attacked it was relentless, a real siege on their goal, and we could have scored more.”
Following the 3-1 win over Bristol Rovers on Boxing Day, Caldwell made four changes to the Exeter City side. In came Jake Richards and Kamari Doyle, both of whom made an impact off the bench, while Jay Bird started upfront. Tristan Crama also returned from injury.
In the 15 th minute, Crawley took the lead, and it had sort of been coming. Again Quitirna was allowed to drive forward without any real challenge. The ball in the penalty area broke to Camara, and getting it out from under his feet, he poked home.
In the 35 th minute, and with what was the first shot of the game for the Grecians, they drew level. Harper set Alli free down the left and he drove forward and cut inside, shot from 25 yards, with his effort sneaking into to bottom corner.
