Crawley Town v Harrogate Town preview: The kind of game Reds must win if they have play-off ambitions

Harrogate scored a late equaliser in that game to deny Crawley of three points but Crawley will feel confident coming into this game that they can pick up three points on home turf.

Their opponents Harrogate are having a decent season, considering it is their first in the EFL, as they are sitting in 20th and comfortably above the relegation zone. They’re nine points off the drop zone and have picked up some impressive results on the road this season.

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Wins at Exeter, Bradford and Mansfield being the pick of the bunch. Their away form has been what has generated the majority of Harrogate’s win, with them sitting 4th in the away league table, picking up 20 of their 30 points on the road.

Jack Muldoon is the danger man for Harrogate, scoring 11 league goals this season, which is less than a third of all of Harrogate’s league goals this season.

Despite Muldoon’s goals Harrogate’s main issue this season has been not scoring enough goals, only scoring 28 league goals this season. They strengthened on deadline day to try and address this with the loan signing of young striker Josh Andrews from Birmingham City, who could make his debut against Crawley on Saturday.

The Reds know that if they want to be in and around the play-off mix, they have to be winning these sorts of games and a win will be the only result that Crawley want.

A win would keep them in the play-off mix and put them even closer to the top seven. After no new signings on deadline day Crawley had four players come in during January in what was a pleasing window for Crawley. Crawley managed to get a huge fee for Max Watters and bring in some talented players in what has been a great window for the Red Devils.

Now the window is out the way the Reds will want to focus on getting as many points on the board as possible and Crawley can usually be dependent on picking up points at home.

A win for Crawley would be just what they need and could hopefully start another run of great form, as they had prior to the break due to the COVID-19 outbreak.