Port Vale will hope to make it four games unbeaten in League Two on Saturday as Crawley Town travel to Vale Park.
Competition: Sky Bet League Two
Fixture: Port Vale vs Crawley Town
Date: Saturday 7th April 2018
Kick-off: 3pm
Venue: Vale Park
Preview
After a busy Easter period, Vale turn their attention to Crawley Town on Saturday with Neil Aspin’s men looking to extend the gap between the bottom two.
After a win against Chesterfield and a point against local rivals, Crewe Alexandra, The Valiants have plenty of things to be positive about going into tomorrow’s bout.
Vale have only lost one from eleven games at home and will hope to use that as an advantage going into the game against Harry Kewell’s Crawley Town.
The Opposition
After a positive Christmas period, The Reds have started to lose form going into March and April, currently going without a win in seven games. They currently find themselves 13th in League Two and hope for a top half finish.
Throughout their 41 games, they have scored 51 goals, conceding 58. It looked to be a testing season at the start of the campaign after a loss to The Valiants on the opening game of the season.
Goals from Antony Kay, Michael Tonge and Dan Turner secured the win for Michael Brown’s men shortly before The Reds went on a run without a win in four games.
One to watch – Karlan Ahearne-Grant
Currently on-loan from Charlton Athletic, the youngster has seen a huge rise in form for Crawley. His eight goals in 11 games have had a positive effect on the Crawley supporters after signing in January.
The current England U20 International has had previous experiences at higher levels with Charlton in the Championship, playing over 50 games for the club. His impressive performances over the last few months have also earned him a nomination for League Two player of the month.
Crawley have a lot of attacking threat in their squad, in the likes of Enzo Boldewijin, Jimmy Smith and Aryan Tajbaksh but under current form – Ahearne-Grant seems the most threatening.
Team News
The Valiants will be without Ryan Boot this weekend after he picked up a foot injury in the 2-2 draw over Crewe on Easter Monday. Danny Pugh remains suspended as Sam Hornby is likely to start in goal.
Rob Lainton remains doubtful as Kjell Knops remains a long-term casualty.
Following their 1-1 draw with Swindon Town, Crawley look fresh going into tomorrow’s tie and could name a similar squad.
Talk
Neil Aspin: “If you give me a couple of wins in the next few games, I’d be delighted. It would give us a point total of where we want to be. But, you don’t set targets because you don’t know what other teams are going to do.”
Mark Connolly (Crawley Defender): “I wouldn’t like to be a team playing us. We haven’t stopped and we haven’t given up, we want to finish as high as possible. We’ve got a good footballing team and we’re dangerous.”
Coverage
Follow The Vale will be providing full 90 minute commentary from the match, while the Port Vale Twitter and Facebook feed will be providing live updates for the entirety.
There will also be build-up to the game with the official Snapchat account: officialpvfc.
Reaction will be available on the official website post-match, as well as on YouTube, iFollow and social media.