Crawley Town vs Cheltenham Predictions

If last weekend’s come-back victory over Leyton Orient wasn’t enough, Crawley beat Premier League Norwich on Tuesday night in the League Cup. As a result, confidence is likely to be sky-high at Broadfield Stadium, which is where the Red Devils will look for a third straight win on Saturday afternoon. Cheltenham will be hoping to make it four games without tasting defeat.

Crawley fans must be excited with the start made by their team this time around. Under the stewardship of Gabriele Cioffi, the Red Devils have become an astute attacking side, a side that both creates lots of chances and scores plenty of goals. Defensively, there is still sizeable room for improvement, but if Crawley can maintain their current attacking numbers, then there’s every chance that they can challenge for a place in the top six.

After five matches, Crawley have scored a pleasing nine goals, scoring in 100% of their League Two games. They’ve posted an extremely pleasing average of 2.06 expected goals for, which tells us that they’ve been by no means lucky to score with such regularity.

Cheltenham have also scored plenty of goals in League Two this term. Saturday’s visitors go to Broadfield Stadium having notched eight in five, scoring twice in each of their last two. From a creativity point of view, they haven’t been as imposing as Crawley, as they’ve created a far more modest average of 1.14 expected goals for, though they won’t care too much about that, especially ahead of a match against open-looking opposition, who for all their attacking strength, have given quite a bit away this term.

In the betting, there are two angles that appeal. Firstly, ‘Crawley to Win & Under 3.5 Goals’ makes plenty of appeal. Crawley, who at home have offered significantly more going forward than Cheltenham on the road, have been rather cavalier in their approach this term, but they showed in the week that they can grind out a result. Add in the fact that they’ve given little away in two home games, conceding an average of 0.79 expected goals for and backing the hosts to beat a Cheltenham side that is yet to score away from home without running riot looks like a viable option.

Secondly, at the prices ‘Both Teams to Score – NO’ stands out massively. Both teams have scored in 80% of Crawley’s matches, though as touched on above, the Red Devils have done a good job of restricting teams at home, while the fact that Cheltenham are averaging just 0.42 expected goals for, 0.99 expected goals against, 0 goals for and 0.5 goals against on the road point towards the chances of a game where both teams don’t net being greater than the current prices suggest.