Doncaster Rovers v Crawley Town preview: Can Reds take advantage of Donny's bad form?

Three league defeats in a row has seen Donny lose their unbeaten start to the campaign as they’ve dropped into midtable. It’s still a better position to be in than visitors Crawley, who are down in 20th with just one win to their name in the league.

Defeat last week at Crewe meant The Red Devils were unable to pick up back-to-back victories following their win over Stockport County.

Kevin Betsy’s side need to start picking up wins quickly as all the pre-season optimism behind Crawley has rapidly faded as they’ve struggled to get results.

Facing a Doncaster side in a bad run of form should give The Reds some optimism to get a win but they have to do better going forward.

Crawley have the lowest expected goals in the division with just 4.7 so far. They also have the lowest accurate crosses per match with just 1.9.

It’s clear to see Crawley are having trouble going forward and the build up play needs to be worked on and become better and more effective.

When the sides have met in the past it has normally been a close encounter with four draws and one win for each side in the six meetings between the sides in the EFL.

The home side has never won a meeting between the two sides with Crawley’s win against Doncaster coming back in 2012, as Nicky Ajose’s 87th minute winner gave Crawley a 1-0 win at the Keepmoat Stadium.

Doncaster’s win was more emphatic as they battered Crawley 5-0 in 2015 at The Broadfield Stadium.

Rovers manager Gary McSheffrey played for Donny the last time these sides met in 2017, a 0-0 stalemate at The Broadfield Stadium.

He’ll be hoping to get his side back to winning ways to ensure they don’t slip down the table any further than they already have.

Kevin Betsy will be hoping to have a couple players returning from injury available for selection, with the likes of Dion Conroy and Joel Lynch potentially being back to fitness.