Crawley must sharpen up to stop improving Stevenage in their tracks

This will be the first time the two sides have met this season, with the original fixture being postponed due to the Covid outbreak at Crawley. That was midway through January and since then Stevenage have made plenty of changes, being extremely active in the January transfer window, bringing in eight new faces.

These changes have inspired Stevenage, as they have climbed out the bottom two and given themselves some breathing space, sitting in 21st place and six points clear of the bottom two. Since the turn of the year things have begun looking brighter for Boro and they come into this contest with seven points from their last five, which is a decent return for a team fighting against relegation.

They’ve picked up some impressive results in this time with a win over a Tranmere team who were in great form, being the pick of the bunch. They tend to use a 4-4-2 formation, with January signing Luke Norris being the main striker and he’s had a variety of partners to help him lead the line including

Matty Stevens, Danny Newton and Elliott List.

List is primarily a winger and is the top scorer for Stevenage, with four to his name this campaign. Four goals for a top scorer is a low number and sums up Stevenage perfectly in the last two seasons, with them simply not scoring enough goals.

Just 22 league goals this season ranks them as one of the lowest, with only Southend and Grimsby scoring fewer. However, the goals have also dried up for Crawley recently too, failing to score more than one goal in a league game in 2021.

The Reds’ form has not been great and they’ve seen themselves slip away from the play-off places and into mid-table. It hasn’t been a case of Crawley getting unlucky in games - they simply haven’t been good enough recently and have deserved the results that have come their way.

The first half against Harrogate was possibly the worst Crawley have played since John Yems took over and they’ll need a massive improvement, or they could find themselves embarrassed again.

In terms of home and away form it seems to have completely flipped for Crawley, after their previous immaculate home form and poor away form. The Reds haven’t won at home in the league since fans were allowed in grounds on December 12 in the 4-2 win against Barrow. It’s very uncharacteristic of Crawley after being so good at home for so long and they will need to turn it around quickly if they have play-off ambitions.

Stevenage on paper is the perfect game to start but this was said when Harrogate came to the People’s Pension Stadium last week and Crawley were defeated, so the Reds will know they are in for another tough game but another one they have to win.