Crawley Town vs Port Vale Predictions

Things haven’t gone too well for Crawley over the last few weeks; they lost away against Stevenage a fortnight ago, while they were beaten in their re-arranged match with Mansfield on Tuesday night, despite hanging on for the best part of 90 minutes. The Reds will be hoping that a return to this venue sparks a return to form.

Crawley were poor against Mansfield on Tuesday, but they can be forgiven for failing to deliver against one of the best teams in the league. Prior to that defeat, Saturday’s hosts looked good away against Stevenage. On that occasion, they were poor at the back, but the football that they played was attractive, while they created an awful lot. In truth, since they emerged from the game with an expected goal difference of +1.17, they certainly didn’t deserve to lose. A repeat of those attacking efforts on Saturday should see Gabriele Cioffi’s men do well.

Performances at Checkatrade haven’t always been good this season, but Crawley have often looked OK going forward. They’ve scored five goals in their last three at home and have won each of their last two on home soil. However, from a defensive point of view, the hosts have looked suspect. They’ve surrendered an average of 1.58 expected goals at home during the current campaign, while their recent expected goals against figures read: 0.85, 1.18, 3.52, 1.47, 1.49 and 2.99. Some of those are not that bad, but it’s easy to see that Crawley don’t often prevent their opponent from creating.

Port Vale are a side that has found it tough to create opportunities on the road of late, but they’re not mugs when it comes to preventing teams from creating. The visitors are currently unbeaten in four on their travels, while they held the current league leaders to a draw last time out away from home. Going forward, their recent performances haven’t been all that, but some of their away-day efforts suggest that they could easily get at a Crawley side that isn’t too secure, such as when they went away to Yeovil, recorded 1.54 expected goals for and conceded just 0.54 or when they went away to Oldham and created 1.67 and conceded just 0.75.

Given that the visitors have offered better resistance away from home than Crawley have on their own patch, coupled with the fact that they’ve lost just one of their last seven on the road, not to mention the fact that Crawley have been bettered in terms of expected goals in six of their last seven at home, then it’s easy to feel that the visitors are a tad overpriced. In truth this isn’t the sort of game where you’d fancy either side strongly, but a small bet on the visitors makes sense from a value point of view.