Crawley Town midfielder joins League One rivals Wigan Athletic

Reds host Wrexham at the Broadfield Stadium on Saturday, February 1, hoping to follow-up their win at Mansfield on Tuesday with another good performance and three points.

The trip to Mansfield followed a long journey to Stockport on Saturday.

“It’s the end to a tough long week, two tough long way travels but we’re looking forward to getting back at the Broadfield in front of the fans,” said Elliot.

And with all the excitement around Wrexham with the Disney+ show and being owned by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, it should be a great occasion for everyone.

“I suppose Wrexham's probably one of their standout games for most teams because of obviously the club itself and what they've done the last few years,” said Elliot. “It'll be a good occasion for us and obviously hopefully in front of a packed out stadium we can add to what we've done Tuesday and make sure that we give ourselves the best opportunity to win the game.

“Wrexham are a very good team, they've consistently done very well the last three years and they've got a winning culture with two promotions recently.

“They've had a couple of difficult results so I know that they'll obviously be chomping at the bit themselves so it'll be a tough game regardless and one that we need to be really switched on for and more important is continuing what we did on Tuesday.

“Tuesday was pretty much back to where we wanted to be, where we were before Christmas.”

A win and a loss on the road at Stockport and Mansfield respectively showed the best and worst of Crawley this season.

Elliot said: “Let's be honest Stockport, they're in the top five for a reason and they just outpowered us and we just didn't cope with the physicality and we didn't give ourselves a chance.

You come away from the game frustrated and angry and disappointed but when I reflected, these players have been giving us everything and I think we probably let ourselves down as a group a couple occasions and I thought Saturday we did against Stockport.

“But what they have done is every time that's happened they've shown a reaction and the reaction Tuesday was excellent. My message to the players was that you know we have an identity, we want to play a certain way and my personal belief is that we don't come away from that so we went all in on our possession, all in on the play, all in terms of the way we want to manipulate the ball, how we're going to get into areas to affect teams and re-established how we're going to be effective without the ball in terms of our energy, our work rate, our press and I thought we did exceptionally well.”

Charlie Barker, who produced a brilliant goalline clearance in the denying moments against Mansfield said if Crawley can get to at least 0-0 at half-time, they have every chance of winning games.

Elliot agreed. “I think what Charlie's saying is correct,” he said. “Too many times, like the games against Barnsley, Stockport you a 2-0 down or 3-0 down before we can even get a foothold in the game so absolute worst case nil-nil at half-time for us, knowing that we all have high possession and that we wear teams down in terms of the way we play, should be the minimum requirement we want to get to.

“Ideally you know we're scoring goals before that which we have done in previous games but I think it's setting a base for ourselves and giving ourselves an opportunity not letting the game get away from us.

“I thought that's what we did really well on Tuesday night so look we need to take that mentality, take that mindset and move forward with it to get to a point where we can actually be consistent and confident in the way we're playing and keep building on it. If we keep turning out performances like Burton and like Mansfield then the results will come.”

Wrexham are pushing for a third consecutive promotion, they are currently third but are six points behind second-placed Wycombe and eight points behind leaders Birmingham, who have two games in hand.

And they have hit a little bit of a bump in form, failing to win any of their last three matches, including defeats to Shrewsbury and Stevenage.

Elliot said: “The Shrewsbury game was an intense derby isn't it or as close to a derby as I'd imagine being from that area. And we watched the Stevenage game and Stevenage were excellent but Wrexham still caused a massive threat. They conceded poor goals for their standard so it wasn't like it was more a case of Wrexham were the ones who conceded the goals rather than being broken down.

“They're a huge threat from wide areas and from set pieces and are consistently scoring. They had Paul Mullins on the bench for that game, they have Jack Marriott and all the other attacking players so we know that it's not going to be as simple as that.

“We can't concentrate on what Wrexham are going to do in terms of how they're going to prepare, we can prepare the best we can to stop them and we can also make sure we prepare the best we can to be at the levels that we want to be because I genuinely do believe that, especially at home and we haven't lost many at home, is when we're at the levels we need to be at home with the crowd and everything we we can be a very good team and that's what we need to look forward to on Saturday.”

You can read the latest Crawley Town injury news here.