Cheltenham Town v Crawley Town: Can Reds notch up fourth consecutive win against the Robins?

It’ll be the first time Crawley travel to the Johnny Rocks Stadium in two seasons as their game last season was cancelled due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

The last time Crawley travelled to Cheltenham was the opening day of the 2018/19 season, where Ollie Palmer netted the winner in a 1-0 win on his debut for the club. A 1-0 scoreline has been a regular theme in recent years in this game with all three of the last games between the sides ending 1-0. These all ended up in wins for Crawley with all the goals coming from Ollie Palmer.

The Red Devils will of course have to do it without Palmer, but have both Ashley Nadesan and Tom Nichols in good form to replicate his goals.

Cheltenham will be looking to deny Crawley a fourth consecutive victory against them and have started the season brightly, after heartbreak in the play-offs last season. After having one game postponed Cheltenham have won two and lost one of their opening three games.

Both these wins have come away from home, with their only defeat being a 2-1 loss at home to Morecambe on the opening day. Since then the Robins have played two scored five and conceded zero. Cheltenham will be looking to go a step beyond what they achieved last season, after losing in the semi-finals of the play-offs to Northampton Town, who eventually gained promotion. The Robins have the perfect chance to rise themselves up the table, as a win over Crawley would see them leapfrog the Red Devils, into at least a play-off place.

Crawley will be looking to improve from their draw last week with Southend and gain back-to-back away wins. Crawley gained their first away win in over a year last time out on the road and will be hoping wins on the road come round like London buses.

The form of Tom Nichols and Ashley Nadesan will be a huge positive for the Reds, with both picking up 2 goals so far this season. The two are starting to form a good partnership up front and can only improve, having not played with each other for a very long time. If Crawley can give either of them a chance, they will most likely take it and give the Reds a good chance of claiming a point or even three on the road.

Crawley will need to improve on their second half performance against Southend but if they can replicate what they did in the first half for 90 minutes they’ll give themselves a great chance of picking up more points on the road.