Newport County v Crawley Town preview: Tricky task for the Reds on the road

Crawley will be looking to improve on Saturday’s defeat at Bradford but know that’ll be a tricky task against a very strong Newport side.

Crawley were narrowly defeated at Bradford but created lots of chances. The game changed when Ashley Nathaniel-George and David Sesay were introduced from the bench but Crawley couldn’t take their chances. Despite this Bradford probably deserved all three points, despite the fact Crawley could’ve snatched a point in the late stages.

Newport have started the season very strongly and currently occupy third place and have the strongest defence in League Two, conceding just seven league goals all season.

After narrowly missing out on promotion in the play-off final against Tranmere Rovers in extra time, Newport will be looking for promotion again this season and have had a good start to this campaign with 26 points from their opening 13 games.

They find themselves in an automatic promotion place with a game in hand on Crewe and Bradford who are above them. Newport also have an unbeaten record at home in the league, with five wins and two draws from their opening seven home league games. It’ll be a record Crawley will be looking to take off them, as they did to Lincoln City last year when an own goal meant Crawley were the first team to beat Lincoln at home all season.

Crawley come into this with a tricky run of fixtures after playing high flying Bradford on Saturday they now face another team in the automatic promotion places within the space of four days.

It’ll be a game where Crawley will have to be at their best to get anything out of it but a win would take them very close and if not in to a play-off position. A congested fixture list at the moment will mean the squad may need to be rotated a bit and fans can hopefully see returns to the side for Ollie Palmer and Ashley Nadesan. These two could be included in the squad for Newport and if not should make the squad for the game on Saturday against Swindon.