Crawley boss Scott Lindsey feels his improving side are on course to achieve their targets after matching last season’s tally of 11 league wins with a comfortable 3-1 home victory over his former club Swindon.
Striker Danilo Orsi extended his total for the campaign to 13 with a goal in each half and Jack Roles bagged the other on his full league debut as the Red Devils moved up to 12th and three points outside the play-off places.
Lindsey believes Crawley are making good progress after he saved them from relegation last season and feels they are now “miles away from where we were”.
The 51-year-old, who is coming up for his first year in charge, added: “I have a very good relationship with the fans, owners and the players and enjoy coming into work.
“We’ve come a long way since I’ve been here. We have private aims of where we want to get to and we’re on course so I’m really pleased.”
Victory was particularly sweet for Lindsey, whose side were thrashed 6-0 at Swindon at the end of August, and he felt a change of game plan made all the difference.
He explained: “We played in a different way and used a different tactic.
“We pressed differently for what I felt was needed. We pressed from the middle of the pitch rather than the outside and the players executed it to perfection.”
Swindon manager Michael Flynn confirmed striker Jake Young and attacking midfielder Dan Kemp, who scored their late consolation, will now be returning to parent clubs Bradford and MK Dons respectively.
The pair have stood out while on loan with the Robins, scoring 16 goals apiece, but Flynn is now turning his attention to getting players in.
He said: “One deal is on the brink of going through and there are two or three others in the pipeline. I’m going to be getting players in – it’s my job to improve the squad.”
Swindon, after an encouraging start to the season, have now lost 11 of their last 17 league games and Flynn questioned his players’ desire with the team now having conceded 50 goals.
He said: “The players need to look at this performance and tell me what they think they got out of it.
“We were too open at times, letting players go in the box and letting too many crosses come in too early.
“The players seem to have a lack of desire and understanding of the game at times.
“Even so, we still made some good chances but I’m not going to dress it up – this was not good enough for this club.
“We need new personnel. We need to sign players who have got a better work ethic than we showed today.”
Van Dijk hails Hungary 'strength' for playing on after coach collapse
Virgil van Dijk saluted Hungary for playing on after assistant coach Adam Szalai appeared to suffer a fit during their Nations League clash.
Play was suspended for 13 minutes at the Johan Cruijff ArenA while Szalai was treated pitchside, with staff and substitutes forming a protective barrier around him.
The 36-year-old was taken to Amsterdam Hospital, where he later revealed he was "doing well" on his social media channels.
Although Hungary agreed to play on, the Netherlands ran out comfortable 4-0 winners to book their place in the Nations League quarter-finals.
Wout Weghorst and Cody Gakpo were on target from the penalty spot during the first half, while goals from Denzel Dumfries and Teun Koopmeiners after the break saw the Oranje secure second place in Group A3.
And Van Dijk paid tribute to his side's opponents.
"That was quite a shock, of course," he told NOS. "You see someone lying down, you see someone shaking. That is quite scary. But thankfully, at a certain point, it became clear that he was stable. I hope he is doing well and that he recovers quickly.
"They had to decide whether they wanted to continue playing. I think it shows a lot of strength that they did carry on. I have a lot of respect for that."
On his side's performance, Van Dijk added: "The pitch was very fast, but that's no excuse. It was sloppy.
"In the end, we won deservedly and that's the most important thing. We go to the quarter-finals, we win, we keep a clean sheet."
Real Madrid 0-4 Barcelona: Guijarro brace sets visitors up for Clasico glory
Patri Guijarro's first-half brace set Barcelona on their way to a thumping 4-0 win over rivals Real Madrid in Liga F on Saturday.
Claudia Pina and Alexia Putellas were also on target as Barcelona continued their perfect start to the season, extending their lead at the top of the table.
The visitors dominated from the off, as Guijarro broke the deadlock inside the fourth minute, tapping in from Putellas' flick-on from a corner.
Cata Coll was forced into a big save to deny Alba Redondo an equaliser shortly after, but Madrid's hope was soon dented as Guijarro picked out the bottom corner with a superb long-range strike for her second.
Pina strengthened their lead six minutes before the break, clinically slotting past Misa with her low strike.
Putellas added some more gloss to the scoreline with four minutes remaining of normal time, beating the Madrid keeper with a lovely dink to bring up her 199th goal for the club.
Barcelona have won all 10 of their games, and now sit eight points clear of Madrid, who suffered their first league defeat of the campaign.
Data Debrief: Total dominance
Madrid will have felt fairly confident coming into this game after a strong start to their season, but they once again failed to find a way past their Clasico rival.
Los Blancos have lost every single game they have played against Barcelona in all competitions, with this their 15th such meeting.
Barcelona smothered their attack early on, restricting their hosts to just one shot in the first half, while they had 10.
Indonesia 0-4 Japan: Visitors stay unbeaten with rout
Japan continued their unbeaten start to World Cup qualifying with a 4-0 victory over Indonesia on Friday.
Two goals from the visitors in either half were enough to seal the three points and get them back to winning ways after a stalemate with Australia last time out.
Ragnar Oratmangoen should have put Indonesia ahead, but he hesitated one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and Japan did not look back after that. They got a bit of fortune with their first goal, Justin Hubner deflecting a cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
Takumi Minamino got their second just before the break, finishing off a pacy counter-attack by darting onto the end of Kaoru Mitoma’s cross to sweep it past Maarten Paes.
While there was not much the goalkeeper could do with that one, he was at fault for the third as he gifted the ball to Hidemasa Morita, who coolly picked out the bottom corner just after the break.
Yukinari Sugawara came off the bench to round off the scoring in the 69th minute. He raced down the right wing and instead of looking to his options, he rifled it in from a tight angle at the near post.
Japan are up to 13 points after five games, sitting top of Group C, while Indonesia are bottom, still in search of their first win.
Data Debrief: Clinically done
For a team still chasing their first win, Japan are probably not high on the list of opponents they would want to face, and Indonesia were undone by their visitors.
Hajime Moriyasu's side created 0.79 expected goals (xG) to Indonesia's 0.72, while they only had four more shots than their hosts (12 compared to eight).
Japan took their chances, and though the win margin may look harsh, they were deserving of the three points, having dominated throughout the game.
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