Crawley Town dismiss manager Richie Barker after goal drought

Crawley Town have terminated the contract of manager Richie Barker with immediate effect.

The 38-year-old former Bury boss had been in charge since August 2012.

He guided them to 10th place in League One last season, but they have not won any of their last seven league games, scoring only once.

A statement on the club website said they would make an announcement as soon as possible on who would look after team affairs in the interim period.

"We ask our supporters to have patience while the process of finding a new manager is undertaken," the statement added.

The Reds are unbeaten in the last four games in all competitions following a 0-0 draw at home to Swindon on Tuesday.

However, Barker had acknowledged their goalscoring problems and told BBC Sussex: "The statistic of number of goals in games is not great admittedly, but at some point we have to pick up points and results. To do that you have to keep clean sheets."

He continued: "Earlier on in the season when we were scoring and conceding loads of goals people were asking about clean sheets.

"I do understand people want to come and see goals. We want to make it an entertaining place to come, but we have to grind out the odd result throughout 46 games in what is a long season.

"I said to the players when things were going really well that we need to make hay while the sun shines as at some point it won't work for us. Unfortunately that is the point we are going through at the minute."

Barker was formerly a striker for a number of clubs including Sheffield Wednesday, Brighton, Macclesfield, Rotherham, Mansfield and Hartlepool.

He was given his first chance in management by Bury, becoming caretaker boss when Alan Knill left for Scunthorpe in April 2011, and was confirmed in the post two months later.

Prior to his dismissal by Crawley, he had been linked with the vacant job at Portsmouth, having previously worked alongside Pompey chief executive Mark Catlin at Bury.