Crawley Town boss Francis Vines faces a tough challenge to find a new goalkeeper in time for next Saturday's FA Cup first round tie at Telford.

He joked he may be forced to put on the gloves himself as there is no obvious replacement for Andy Little, who will be ruled out for up to six weeks after suffering a fractured cheekbone during Saturday's 3-2 win against Chippenham Town.

Vines will be reviewing his options this week and could call upon his old friend Vic Bettinelli to provide cover.

Bettinelli started the season as Town's assistant manager before leaving to become under-18s goalkeeping coach at Fulham.

Reds have no other keepers with experience at this level and usually bring players in on a match-to-match basis if Little cannot play.

FA Cup rules state players must be registered to play at least seven days before a match and the club is believed to be applying for an exception to be permitted.

If a player cannot be brought in, they could promote Jamie Anderson from the reserves or even opt to use the club's managing director Steve Duly, who has sat on the first team bench before under previous boss Billy Smith.

Little will have an operation later this week on his cheekbone after a third-minute collision with team-mate Marc Pullan forced him to take no further part in the game.

Vines joined the club's physio Richard Massimo and Dr Tim Buck in examining the player as he lay in agony on the pitch.

Diminutive defender Ian Payne replaced him in the absence of any goalkeeping cover among the five substitutes.

He did well to keep out anything lowly opponents Chippenham could throw at him until deep into the second half.

Reds went top of the Dr Martens League at the end of an eventful afternoon.

It was not easy as Crawley's opponents, reduced to ten men in the 45th minute when Mark Harrington was sent off for elbowing Robert Smith, recovered from 2-0 down to 2-2.

Reds led through goals by Paul Armstrong in the 34th minute and a Joff Vansittart header on 65 minutes.

Scott Walker fired in a 70th-minute goal which flew into the net off a defender, then in the 71st minute Nathan Edwards took advantage of a poor clearance to chip over Payne from 30 yards.

Fabian Forde came off the bench to head an 80th minute goal for Crawley, his first for the club.

Vines said: "I haven't a clue who will go in goal on Saturday, it could even be me.

"I went in goal once last season for the reserves, but we shall see if we can bring in someone on loan.

"Ian Payne did well as he's only about 5ft tall, but I was disappointed with the way we played. We went 2-0 up and then stopped playing totally. We lost our shape.

"Thank God we've got that game out of our system.

"We were a long way from being world beaters but it's good we can play as bad as that and still win."