Steven Evans says Bristol Rovers will ‘win lots of games’ after Crawley victory

Bristol Rovers boss Steve Evans hailed the best performance since his appointment last December as the Gas eased to a 2-0 win at Crawley.

First half goals from Tom James and Bobby Kamwa made it two wins in their first three games for Rovers, and Evans felt they should have won far more convincingly.

The former Crawley manager said: “This is the best performance since I’ve been at the club. Crawley is a difficult place to come as I well know.

“Crawley are a good side, but we dominated from start to finish and on chances made we should have had seven or eight.

“We scored two brilliant goals; Tom’s free kick was no surprise- he practices those all day long.

“Bobby’s goal was brilliant, the touch and the finish was absolutely superb.”

Evans set a target of a top three finish at the start of the season and is highly encouraged so far.

He added: “It’s too early to say whether we’ll win anything, but we’ll win lots of games if we play like that.”

Evans was adamant that the decision not to award Crawley a penalty when they were 1-0 down was correct, but Colin Kazim-Richards, boss of the Red Devils, was certain Pemi Aderoju was pulled down by Kofi Balmer.

He said: “It’s a 100 per cent clear foul.”

The Crawley manager went out of his way not to use that as an excuse, and added:” We can’t have another game like that and can’t rely on penalty shouts.

“It was a game when we still need to be better for 88 minutes and I take responsibility for that.”

Crawley, who lost 46 league games in the previous two seasons combined, have begun the season with two defeats in three and Kazim-Richards says it is now time for the players’ character to shine through.

He added:” The boys are holding themselves accountable. We won’t come out like that again.

“We can’t have another game like that; we have to move the ball quicker. We had an off day, but there were a lot of mistakes in how the game was refereed.”