In his news conference, Crawley Town manager Rob Elliot hinted that they could be able to skip the Wycombe Wanderers match next week, but he insisted that they are playing to win.
This weekend, the Reds take on Huddersfield Town, and Elliot’s squad hopes to maintain their better play against a formidable opponent in an attempt to escape the relegation zone.
However, the volume of games Crawley has been playing won’t help, particularly following their 0-0 draw with Burton Albion on Tuesday night. They also face another Tuesday night match next week, this time against league-leading Wycombe in the EFL Trophy.
Elliot joked, “Am I allowed to say yes?,” in response to the question of whether it was a game they could live without. I haven’t been coaching in the football league long enough, but as a player, I didn’t enjoy the games because I thought that you were playing in these competitions, which are likely more geared towards players under 21, than they are towards our players, and you were playing almost 50 games a season.
But it does give opportunities for players to play games, and I do think it’s worthwhile, but the scheduling is obviously tough when it comes to Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday.
“When the game starts, we want to win it, and we will obviously have to have one mind on Bristol Rovers as well, still a chaotic ten days to go before we get a normal week.
“It’s not a criticism, it is what it is.”
The Reds manager will look at the positives, with the game being a chance to play players who have not had as many minutes this season.
Tyreece John-Jules, a former Arsenal Academy player, is one player that falls into that category. He needs game time to fully recover from a lengthy injury.
“We will just need to use it as an opportunity to get players minutes,” Elliot stated. “We need to monitor Ty’s (Tyreece John-Jules) fitness to see if we can get him some minutes.” We need to make sure that when he returns, he gets minutes on Tuesday, which is acceptable to him because he hasn’t been on grass for nine or 10 months.
