Bolton Wanderers v Crawley Town preview: Reds off to pre-season promotion favourites

Wanderers have dropped from the Premier League all the way down to League Two and are not looking to hang about in League Two for long and want to get back up those leagues. Their 12-point deduction last season ultimately saw them relegated to League Two and it’s a place they don’t want to stay.

Summer signings Eoin Doyle and Antoni Sarcevic most notably highlighted Bolton’s desire to get out of League Two and make a surge back up the leagues. However, not everything has gone to plan for Bolton as they currently sit in mid-table but are starting to improve. Ian Evatt is slowly getting his players playing better and will be looking for his side to make a promotion push in the second half of the season.

Wanderers didn’t have a game midweek, due to positive Covid-19 tests in their opponents Morecambe's squad, so will have had a week on the training ground in order to prepare for the tie against the Red Devils.

Crawley are travelling once more, after a midweek trip to Forest Green they face another long trip up to Bolton where they’ll be hopeful of picking up some points. Not so long ago this fixture being a league game would be unheard of with Bolton floating around the Premier League and Crawley floating around non-league.

However, as it stands Crawley are higher up in the league table than Bolton and have made a better start to the season than their opponents. They’ll be looking to extend this gap and push themselves closer and closer to those play-off places that they’ll be looking to creep into come the end of the season.

With it being January there is also a transfer window and there may be some movement in the Crawley camp, with Max Watters being the most obvious one. Watters is drawing attention from clubs such as Brighton, Watford, West Brom and Swansea and Crawley will have a hefty price tag on him. It’ll be interesting to see whether he stays or goes but Crawley will be hoping that while he’s here he continues to score goals, which will help Crawley rise up the table.