Town boss Richie Barker spoke to his club's official website ahead of his side's League One game against Carlisle at the Broadfield Stadium tonight, Barker pleased with Crawley's recent form:
“We are back to playing how we were in September and I want to keep that going and, just as importantly, so do the players. On Saturday at Bury we had a nice mix of defensive solidity and attacking threat. Two goals away from home was great and we could have had more but so was the clean sheet. I would say the last four games are probably the best in terms of back to back games that we have had since probably September or October time.
“As a run of four games, although we haven’t come away with the points totals, as a run of four games I think it has been excellent. The game we lost we played 100 minutes with ten men and we could argue that we should have come away with far more than we did. But, the performances have been excellent and if we can continue those performances, momentum we did talk about a long time ago in that we didn’t have any, and we hope that that momentum will pick up, and at the minute it is doing.
"But it will be a different sort of game on Tuesday and a lot more difficult. On our away trips this season we have used it as a motivation by saying we don't want to get on the bus home with nothing to show for our efforts and I'm sure Greg (Abbott) will be thinking the same. It is a long trip, we did it earlier in the season and it is a long one. For Carlisle luckily they are coming the day before I think with it being a Tuesday night game, but it is going to be one hell of a late night for them afterwards.
"They were very unlucky not to get something at Notts County on Saturday so it will be tough. I saw Greg’s quotes as well saying that they didn’t play bad enough to come away without anything. But, it happens in this league, the number of times we have said we have deserved to come away with something.
“So, I pretty much know how Greg feels to be fair and he has done a fantastic job there, it must be a good few seasons he has been there now with predominantly a top half finish most years and a couple of Johnstone’s Paint Trophy finals in there. Obviously logistically they are a bit like ourselves in that they have always got a lot of travelling going on. But, we need to make sure that we start positively, the onus will be on us to start well, get our crowd behind us and keep the momentum we have built up going and we need to carry on where we left off.
“We are the home team, we need to be in the ascendency, we need to make sure that we show people what we have done over the last few weeks and that we can continue it. So, we need to be playing with energy and enthusiasm and move the ball quickly, and hopefully at some point Carlisle might still be on the bus.”
In team news for the Red Devils this evening, they have two definite absentees in left-sided midfielder Josh Simpson (ankle) and centre-half Kyle McFadzean (virus), while they also have doubts over the participation of striker Billy Clarke who has been missing recently with a hamstring problem. In better news for Town boss Barker though he is able to call again on centre-half Mark Connolly who is back in contention after serving a one-match ban in Crawley’s 2-0 win at Bury on Saturday.
The referee for this evening’s match is Gary Sutton from Lincoln and he will be assisted down the lines by Paul Harris from Maidstone in Kent and David Rock from Hertford in, erm, Hertfordshire. Meanwhile the fourth official is Nigel Lugg from Chipstead in Surrey.