Steve says International call-up could see our top scorer on the sidelines if others do well

Mathias Pogba won’t be involved at Crawley this evening following his call-up to the Guinea International team. Pogba played the final half an hour as Guinea picked up a useful point away at Mozambique in their latest World Cup qualifier. The club’s leading scorer with 16 goals will not feature at the Broadfield Stadium but will return to training on Thursday to make himself available for selection at Bury on Friday.

Davis has never prevented his players from representing their respective countries, but he has admitted that it can unsettling to his own plans, if key players such as Pogba or young Max Clayton are missing matches due to International duty.

Steve told the club’s official web-site: “The players who go away on International duty know that they could lose their place in the team. If those coming into the team in their place, play well then they deserve to stay in. It is a risk they have to take.

“I have said that to both of them and they accepted that. They knew they could lose their place. I am not sure I would have travelled 24 hours to play in Mozambique to play half an hour of football. If I was starting the game then maybe I could a point in it.

“It just seems as though it was a long journey for Pogs with little reward at the end of it. I need to speak to him because we don’t want to be losing him for six, seven games a season when he could be scoring goals for Crewe.

“It would help his club career because other clubs are put off signing players who miss large chunks of the season due to international games.”