Accrington Stanley 0, Crawley Town 1: Ransom heads home to give Reds the three points

This is the Reds third consecutive clean sheet and second win in a row as they leapfrog their fellow League Two competitors and jump from 14th to 8th.

It was a slow start for Scott Lindsey’s Reds who were bombarded with efforts from the home side but Corey Addai was equal to each one as he was key in helping his side going into the break level. After a well needed break and Lindsey team talk, Crawley were rejuvenated as they

were the better side for the second half.

Constant efforts troubled Radek Vítek and it was only a matter of time before the deadlock was to be broken.

Will Wright who was on corner duty due to the early substitution of Liam Kelly, played in a pinpoint cross to find the head of a rising Harry Ransom who made no mistake to nod the ball into the bottom left hand corner of the net.

With a lead to defend for the final 20 minutes, Crawley held their nerve to withstand a huge amount of pressure from the home side. Addai was influential in securing this win with a brilliant late save to deny a deflected cross which should have found the back of the net.

Crawley Town made three changes from the side that beat AFC Wimbledon on Tuesday night.

Nick Tsaroulla, Jeremy Kelly and Adam Campbell returned to the side to replace Kellan Gordon, Harry Forster and Ronan Darcy.

Accrington Stanley almost took advantage of a defensive mix-up in the sixth minute when a long ball caught the visitors off guard. Jake Bickerstaff was left one on one with Corey Addai but the Crawley shot stopper was equal to the chipped effort.

It took Crawley 18 minutes to register their first shot on goal when Tsaroulla looked to curl his effort into the far corner but the shot was instead comfortably caught by Radek Vítek.

The Reds once again looked vulnerable in defence but a mixture of Addai and Dion Conroy helped keep the ball out of the net from a dangerous Accrington attack.

Scott Lindsey was forced into an early substitution due to Liam Kelly having picked up a supposed hamstring injury which meant that Ronan Darcy was called into action at the Wham Stadium.

Darcy’s first involvement was a long range effort at goal which did not trouble the Accrington keeper as it flew over the crossbar.

Addai was forced to produce another good save when he got down low to keep out a dangerous long range strike from Ben Woods.

Crawley managed to have 55.6 percent possession in the first half but were only able to manage three shots with one being on target compared to Accrington’s seven total shots with six of those on target.

The Second half started fast with chances at either end of the pitch. Danilo Orsi who had been kept quiet up until this point, found himself in space on the left hand side before being called offside and then Jack Nolan’s long range effort was comfortably stopped by Addai.

Will Wright then followed the trend to shoot from range as his effort flew over the bar.

Midfielder Klaidi Lolos brilliantly held up play on the halfway line before setting of Darcy who in space ran at the retreating Accrington defence. Darcy ran himself and the ball into a dangerous position before offloading to the left where Jeremy Kelly waited to get his shot away which was

shot straight at Vítek.

After a dominant first 15 minutes in the second half for Crawley, Lewis Trickett helped remind the visitors the danger posed by the home side.

The winger cleverly dropped his shoulder in order to get his shot away which was saved wonderfully by Addai.

Lolos almost struck gold with a powerful effort at goal which was destined for the bottom left hand corner but was saved well by Vítek.

Huge amounts of pressure mounted against Crawley but they were able to keep their nerve through the long seven minutes of added time and go two points of a playoff place with everything to play for heading into the final 13 games of the season.