Barrow v Crawley Town preview: Reds in desperate need for points on longest trip of the season

Last time out, Crawley suffered a 1-2 defeat at the hands of Notts County leaving the Reds without a win in 11 league games.

Despite the result Crawley manager Scott Lindsey was positive about his side’s performance, stating in his pre-match interview, that “I think we were really present in that game and potentially could have got something from the game.”

Ahead of this weekend’s game Lindsey described it as “another tough game because of the proximity of the journey and where it is. So yeah, just kind of that side of it’s hard, but it is what it is and we won’t make any excuses.”

On Wednesday evening Crawley announced the return of yet another Wembley hero, Ronan Darcy who joins Crawley on loan for the remainder of the season from League One side Wigan Athletic, becoming the Reds 11th signing of the January transfer window and the fourth returning player from the team that secured promotion to League One.

Lindsey mentioned Darcy coming in as a “positive” and said “when I spoke to him, he wanted to come back and play here. He loved his time here. He feels that was probably his best football that he’s played in a short career so far and he couldn’t wait to get back here, especially after the signings we’d made.”

Following Klaidi Lolos’ red card against Notts County last Saturday, Lindsey was “told to appeal by Mike Jones, the head of referees. He thought it was soft and he felt that we should appeal.” Crawley proceeded to appeal but “unfortunately the appeal was unsuccessful” and Lolos will now serve a three game suspension.

Crawley and Barrow are similarly matched on paper with the Bluebirds sitting in 19th while the Reds occupy 22nd with a five point gap between the two sides, however the Cumbrian side are beneficiaries of a game in hand.

Crawley are no doubt in a precarious position, just one point and one place above the relegation zone and Lindsey said “we’ve just got to try and knit as many results together as quickly as we can now to get away from that dropzone and finish relatively comfortable and then really look forward to a good season next season.”

As Crawley set about the 650-mile round trip to Barrow they will be looking to change their away fortunes as they currently hold the worst away record in the League with just the one away win all season.

The Reds opponents Barrow sacked their manager Andy Whing at the start of December and since then the Bluebirds have only picked up four points from six matches with their last win coming against Tranmere at the end of December.

They recently appointed Paul Gallagher as their new head coach, who clocked up over 500 appearances playing for the likes of Preston North End, Blackburn Rovers, and Leicester City.

He managed his first official game for Barrow last Saturday which resulted in a 3-1 loss away at Crewe.

The reverse fixture back in September saw Barrow take all three points, winning 1-2 at the Broadfield Stadium. Crawley’s last win against Barrow came during the 2022/23 season where Crawley were 1-0 victors with Ashley Nadesan scoring for the Reds on that occasion.

Crawley are in desperate need for points and with a whole host of new players through the door, can they find their feet and begin to drag themselves away from the relegation zone with the next possible opportunity coming tomorrow afternoon against Barrow.