Cambridge United travel to Crawley Town seeking a return to winning ways after back-to-back cup defeats. Having been dumped out of the Setanta Shield at Telford last Tuesday and the FA Cup at Kidderminster on Saturday, United's focus is back on the league campaign and the U's face former leaders Crawley tomorrow.

Former leaders Crawley are level on 30 points with United but two places higher in fifth due to goal difference. The home side are 6/5 favourites to win with our online betting partners bet365, with the U's at 2/1 and the draw at 9/4. Click here for all the match odds.

Team News

Paul Carden and Phil Bolland are suspended after collecting their fifth bookings of the season last week against Telford, and Jon Challinor has been under treatment this week for a sore knee, but Gary Brabin is confident that he has the quality in his squad to replace them.

Josh Coulson is set to make his first league start of the season in place of Bolland, while Ben Farrell and Mark Convery are the likely candidates to come in for Carden and Challinor, if the latter fails to recover in time. Darren Quinton misses the opportunity to press his claims after suffering a reaction with his knee injury last week after making his first appearance for a year.

Felino Jardim could be set for a recall after coming off the bench to enliven the second half at Kidderminster, while Mark Beesley has had a further week to recover from stitches in his head and he could also return to the starting line-up.

As ever, Brabin kept his thoughts about his team selection to himself but noted that the enforced changes to the team would open the door for other players to come in and impress.

"We're used to that now and it's just a good opportunity for some of the other players to come in and show what they can do. They're all chomping at the bit for a chance to play on Saturday."

However he did confirm that 19-year-old Coulson will start and spoke highly of the towering central defender: "Josh is a great player and I think he has a big future ahead of him. He's trained fantastically well since I've been here and it's a pleasure working with him every day, but Phil Bolland (above) and Wayne Hatswell have been superb this season and you don't want to break that up.

"Josh is the first to understand that, and in terms of his development he learns a lot from the likes of Bolly and Hats. He's been our next in line and he has been waiting patiently for a few weeks because Phil Bolland and Wayne Hatswell have been on four bookings each for a few games now.

"In an ideal world, we'd have been able to get him out on loan, but the problem is you can't call them back until they've been at the other club 28 days and that's too much of a risk for us to take."

Brabin admitted his biggest selection problem is up front, where he has a number of options but no one in outstanding goal form at present: "They're all working hard and there's good competition among the forwards, so that's probably the hardest job for me at the moment.

"We're not scoring as fluently as we'd like but you look at the forwards we've got at the club and it's hard to believe they're not scoring goals. We'll look at things after training on Friday and see who's available. I've got a few ideas but I'm governed by who's fit and available."

The Opposition

Crawley have lost their last two league games, away at Histon and Salisbury, but in their previous game they beat Barrow 4-0 at home. They welcome back several players from injury this week and manager Steve Evans can select from a full squad apart from striker Jamie Cook (groin strain) and Isaiah Rankin (hamstring).

"They're a good side and it will be a good test for us," said Brabin. "I felt at the start of the season that they would be one of our rivals and I fancied them to do well. They've been up at the top and they've had a few injuries recently but they're still up there and I think they'll be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.

"They like to get the ball forward early and then play from there. It works for them and they've got some good footballers in the side as well as a bit of direct play about them as well, so they mix it up a bit. They're not a one-dimensional team and they will definitely be tough opposition for us.

"We've got to concentrate on the league now, so we need to get everything right and keep pushing on for where we want to be at the end of the season," added the U's boss. "We were absolutely gutted to go out of the FA Cup last week but we've had a good few days training and the lads still believe in themselves and what they're doing.

"We're not far away from the top of the league and we still haven't really clicked yet or had that little bit of luck that we feel we need to put the ball in the net. But we're working hard on it every day and believe we can turn it around.

"It's all very positive," he concluded. "We've got Courtney Pitt joining in with training and he and Parky are in every day, and that's a big plus for the lads. We've got them to look forward to when they're back and fit, and we're four points off the top with a game in hand so we're not in a bad position at the moment."

Further Information

You can learn much more about the Red Devils in Doug Shulman's 'The Other Side' article here, you can find admission and away travel details here, and if you fancy a bet on our match or any other event this week please follow this link to visit our official betting partners bet365 - the place where your online betting makes money for the U's.

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