Crawley Town will play a friendly match against Crystal Palace, another London team, on Friday night to round up their preseason preparations.
Match preview
Despite winning all three of their last games, Crawley was demoted from League One back in May, meaning they will regrettably be playing in the fourth division this season.
Scott Lindsey, the manager, will continue to be in charge for the upcoming season as they aim for an immediate return to the third division, but he was simply unable to turn the tide sufficiently to keep them up.
Preseason has been hectic thus far, with the Red Devils defeating non-league teams Dagenham & Redbridge, Three Bridges, and East Grinstead but losing to Hearts.
That was prior to their match against Portsmouth being postponed over the weekend because of a wet surface at the Broadfield Stadium. The match was played later that day in a private setting and ended in a 1-0 loss.
Crawley lost 2-1 to Southampton’s Under-21s in another behind-closed-door friendly on Tuesday. Following three straight five-goal outbursts before these two losses, the home team will be looking for a better result on the eve of the new season.
However, Palace, who defeated Crawley 4-0 in 2023 and 6-3 in 2024 in the previous two preseasons, will be overwhelming favourites to win.
Jesurun Rak-Sakyi scored the lone goal in Palace’s victory over Millwall two weeks ago, making this their second friendly of the summer.
Next weekend, Oliver Glasner’s team will play Augsburg. On August 10, they will travel across London to Wembley to play Liverpool in the Community Shield.
After being unfairly demoted from the Europa League earlier this month, Palace will have to play a two-leg Conference League playoff before Chelsea takes on them on the opening Sunday of the new season.
Prediction:
Away win
