John Gregory's programme notes for Wolves
Good afternoon and welcome back to The Checkatrade.com Stadium for the visit of Kenny Jackett and his Wolves’ team.
Kenny and his players have had to live up to the expectations of their own passionate fans and most of the football world who feel they should be winning automatic promotion this season and they are well placed to do so. But we have given a good account of ourselves against most of the top teams and I don’t see why today will be any different.
I wasn’t at the club back then, but we gave Wolves a very hard game at Molineux in August before losing to an injury-time goal and it would be a real scalp if we could take three points off them today.
The presence of a large Wolves’ contingent will help make it a special atmosphere, but I’m sure our own fans will contribute to that as well. This is a day when we really need every Crawley Town supporter to get behind their team from the first whistle.
Talking of our fans, it was great to reward those of you who travelled to Northampton last Sunday to see us play Coventry with those two late goals which got us a deserved point.
Our first-half performance didn’t get anywhere near the standards we have reached in most of the games since I’ve been here, but we sorted one or two things out at half-time and were much more at it in the second half. We took the game to Coventry and even after going 2-0 down refused to go quietly.
It will do Jamie’s confidence a world of good to score for the second game running. Looking at the stats, he’s a player who seems to get goals in a run so let’s hope this is the start of one for him. Then Duke popped up with the equaliser after good work by Sergio, who really made his presence felt when he came on with Jamie for the last 15 minutes.
We’re halfway through the transfer window and I am still looking to bolster our ranks before the end of the month. I’m delighted to have brought Matt Tubbs back, initially until February 2 but with a view to keeping him for a bit longer all being well.
Matt didn’t start many games towards the end of his spell up at Rotherham but I certainly didn’t consider it a gamble throwing him in from the start last Sunday. He’d had a very good week of training leading up to the game and takes good care of his physical condition. I know he was gutted not to make more of the chance he had in the second half but his all-round play was excellent and I know how much he is looking forward to being involved in such a big game at home again today.
Coventry was the start of a tough stretch of fixtures for us with games at Rotherham and Port Vale following today. We are still looking up rather than down and students of this division will know that a team tends to come with a run in the second half of the season. Last year it was Yeovil. This year? Why can’t it be us? I think the squad is strong enough, especially if we can add to it this month, and we can find that consistency where we produce our best football for 90 minutes and not in spells in a game. That is the challenge for the boys over the next few weeks.
But, first things first and a warm welcome to Kenny Jackett, his players and staff and the fans who have come down to support Wolves. This is a game my boys have been looking forward to all week and it will need a real team effort to get the result we want so please give the boys lots of positive support.
Come on You Reds!
JG
