Boss John Gregory admits Crawley must sharpen up at both ends of the pitch to prevent their season from fizzling out.

Conor Coady pounced on mistakes by Kyle McFadzean and Dannie Bulman to score in each half and earn Sheffield United a 2-0 victory at the Checkatrade.com Stadium. Reds had chances to get back into the game through Andy Drury and McFadzean but were unable to take them as they slipped to their first back-to-back defeats under Gregory.

It saw them drop to 14th in League One and although the Reds boss refused to give up on their play-off hopes he accepted they needed to improve.

Gregory said: “One or two mistakes cost us tonight and against a good team like Sheffield United you are always going to get punished.

“The result flattered them but once they got their noses ahead they got ten men behind the ball and we lacked the quality in the final third to break them down.

“I can’t fault the team for enthusiasm and effort but we lacked that bit of spark and we could have been more clinical when we did create openings.

“It is hard to take but we will continue to push (for the play-offfs). They say anything can happen in football so while the chance is still there we won’t give up.”