Crewe Alex v Crawley Town 25-26 Preview - SHHHOOOTTT!!

If I'm Lee Bell, I have one directive to my players. Shoot as often as humanly possible. I don't care from what angle, from what distance. The game plan here should be to put Harvey Davies under as much pressure as possible. Because, as he demonstrated for most of the the 23-24 season, last season with the Liverpool U21s when they visited Gresty Road and in the early parts of the season with Crawley, he is a woeful shot stopper. So I hope they act accordingly and pepper the Crawley goal all afternoon in this one. Here is my preview of the Alex's 2nd home game of the season:

Defensive Issues

Talking of taking shots, hopefully that shouldn't be too much of a challenge for the Alex, because they are facing a Crawley team that are wide open defensively. They have not conceded less than 60 goals in a full league season since 2013-14. Even in the promotion season, they let in 67. Last season it was 83, albeit in League One and so far this season they've let in 5 goals and have the 3rd highest xG against.

I don't want to keep picking on Davies, but he's currently boasting a 44% save percentage and has -1.1 goals prevented. Both stats are 20th in the league through 2 games. If the Alex perform how they have done in their opening 2 games, they should have plenty of chances.

3 in a row

Winning 3 league games in a row at any stage of a season is tough. But for the Alex, that is something they've found challenging in 2 ways. First, they haven't won their opening 3 league games of any season since 1994-95, when they won their first 5. For a side that doesn't start the season well normally, they have a great chance to put that to bed here with another win.

And second, they won 3 in a row only once last season, when they won 4 straight in late August/early September. In 23-24, they did it twice. Winning is a good habit to get into and if they could make it 3 in a row, that would be a brilliant start to the season.

Strugglers

I know I keep referencing last season, but I'm looking for the Alex to end narratives and start new more positive ones. One of the narratives last season was that they dropped too many points against bottom half teams at home. Whilst they picked up a number of wins, they also lost to the sides in 13th, 15th, 19th, 21st and 22nd.

I'm not saying Crawley will definitely be a struggler this season, but the fact is, they are 23rd right now. And if I'm right in my 1-24 prediction, they may well stay there. These are the kinds of games they should be looking to pick up 3 points in every time, even if they are targeting mid-table.

Make It Count

I think it's doubly important to make this game count as on paper, they have 4 tough opponents to come after this. A strong looking Fleetwood side are next, followed by long trips to Gillingham and Colchester sandwiched in between the always lively Swindon Town under Ian Holloway. They are, on average, expected to finish 9th, 10th, 9th and 5th respectively. Crawley on the other hand are 23rd and expected to finish 16th. This is their last favourable looking game for a while.

Head to Head

I know some fans disregard head to head records as irrelevant and to a certain extent they are, but I do like looking at how the Alex usually do against opponents. And in Crawley's case, they do well normally. They have lost just 4 of their 21 matches against the Red Devils since 2011 and only one of those was at Gresty Road.

Their record against Crawley at home is super impressive, with them going 7-2-1 in 10 games, scoring 17 and conceding just 5. Now would be a great time to keep that good run of results going.

Ref Watch

Alan Young

Urgh. I'm going to let my last 2 reviews of him reffing Alex games last season away at Newport and Cheltenham last season say it:

"Hilariously bad. Booked Knight-Lebel early when he didn't need to. Got countless decisions wrong and once again bought Newport's flopping. He even got a couple on Newport wrong too, namely the ones late in the first half where Cooney was fairly dispossessed and then Tabiner seemed to kick their defender, not the other way round. Alan Young, you're card is marked."

"Oh look, once again Mr Alan Young taking centre stage. For the 3rd straight Crewe game, he was laughably awful. 5 bookings for the Alex and just 1 for Cheltenham is hilarious. He bought all their flops and for some reason ignored at least 2, if not 3, bookings for the Robins. The free kick he gave in the build up to the equaliser never was one, as Tracey seemed to take the ball. I just pray we don't see him take charge of a Crewe game for a long time, as we never seem to get a fair shake with him."

2025-26 Record: 3 games(1 League Two, 1 National League, 1 League Cup), 14 yellows

Last Game: Cheltenham Town 2-0 Exeter City, EFL League Cup, 9th August 2025, 7 yellows

Crewe Alex Record: 1-0-5, 14 yellows, 1 red

Injuries/Absences

Crewe Alex

I don't imagine there was any issue with Demetriou, Hutchinson or Thomas on Tuesday and they were dropped from the squad to manage their minutes. Moult is apparently nursing a tight hamstring, so his involvement in the squad might be in doubt. Holicek is getting closer though, which is a boost.

Crawley Town

The Red Devils were so down on numbers for their game against Swansea that they only named a 7 man bench when 9 names were allowed. I don't know how many of the following names are injured or were rested for that game, but they were missing Dion Conroy, Harry Forster, Danny Cashman, Dion Pereira and Jojo Wollacott. Tola Showunmi, and Ben Radcliffe from their squad. They could be light on numbers for this game.

Team

The same again for the 3rd league game running I assume. Whilst I think Tezgel strengthened his claims for a starting spot after scoring on Tuesday, I don't think his all round performance warranted jumping in, not at the expense of Thomas, Sanders or Lunt.

Finney, Golding and Waller at the back all also didn't do enough to justify starts and I can't imagine March, Agius or O'Reilly will not start either upfront. The only change in the squad

Score Prediction

I'm confident of a win, which usually means I get humbled very quickly. But on this occasion, I think it's justified. Crawley have lost all 3 of their games to open the season, have injuries issues, are short on numbers and short on quality. This really does need to be a win, as it's a result they'll look back on at the end of the season kick themselves if they don't. It's optimistic, but I'll go with the same result as they managed on the opening day.

Crewe Alexandra 3-1 Crawley Town