'We can only concentrate on ourselves' - Crawley Town boss Scott Lindsey looks ahead to Northampton Town trip

Crawley Town will travel to Northampton Town this weekend with a chance to climb out of the League Two relegation zone. The Reds are without an away point all season however, they haven’t lost away to the Cobblers since 2016. Meanwhile, Lindsey has already won away at the Sixfields Stadium earlier this campaign whilst managing Swindon Town.

“You hang on to anything and everything don’t you? To energise yourself and the team,” said Lindsey on his side’s good fortunes ahead of this weekend. “I’ll certainly be using my past experiences.

“I know it’s (the team Lindsey is managing) a different club now with completely different players, but I use it as a lucky omen in many ways. We’ll be preparing properly, analysing them, seeing where we can hurt them and where we can stop them.”

Crawley tried their luck at home to Northampton in August last year ran out 3-2 loses. Back then, Liverpool loanee James Balagizi’s brace wasn’t enough to deny the same effort from Sam Hoskins and a 92nd minute winner from Kieron Bowie.

Hoskins has since gone on to score 12 more goals for Northampton and firmly established himself in League Two’s golden boot race.

“They’ve got a number of good players not just Hoskins,” said Lindsey, replying to the praise of Hoskins. “They’ve got (Mitch) Pinnock, (Louis George) Appere up front who’s a real handful and good players all over the pitch.

“But we’ve just got to make sure that we concentrate on ourselves first and foremost, that we’re structured in a way that will nullify their chances but create for ourselves.”

Crawley couldn’t end their losing streak on Tuesday night against Tranmere Rovers but put on a strong performance once again away from home.

“The fans could see that the players put in a real shift, which I’m pleased for,” send Lindsey. “We were disappointed to send them down the motorway without anything. I felt sorry for them for that, but I thought they saw a real gritty determination to try and win the game.”

A performance of similar character with some luck, could give Crawley their first win in six games and push them out of the danger zone, above Hartlepool United.

In their last games, the rest of the bottom four, Rochdale, Hartlepool and Harrogate Town all couldn’t win and extend the damage for the Reds. On his clubs’ rivals not taking their chances however, Lindsey said, “We can only concentrate on ourselves. That (rival results) is out of our control and we are the only ones in control of what we do.

“We are fully aware of what we’ve got to do and how hard this game will be on Saturday. But we are also aware that we feel after Tuesday’s game that we’ve got a lot of confidence.”