Doncaster Rovers

Rovers take on Crawley Town at the Eco-Power Stadium this weekend.

Gary McSheffrey’s have lost their past three league games, but did beat Sky Bet League One side Lincoln City in the Papa John’s Trophy last time out.

Here we provide all the details on our latest opponents.

Head coach

Crawley appointed Kevin Betsy as their new head coach in the summer, succeeding John Yems in the role.

Betsy arrived at Broadfield Stadium on a two-year deal, after impressing with Arsenal’s U23s side. He has also been in charge of England at youth level in recent years, and is highly rated as a young manager with a bright future in the game.

Form

The Reds have one just one of their previous six league games after a rocky start to the 2022/23 campaign.

That run started with two defeats at home to Northampton Town and AFC Wimbledon in the space of four days, before they picked up a point away at fellow strugglers Rochdale.

They earned another solid draw away at Salford in their next game, before a first win of the season came at home to Stockport County on September 13 in a game that saw them go in front three times. Their last outing saw them beaten narrowly away at Crewe Alexandra.

Key men

The experienced Tony Craig is approaching 600 league appearances in his career, and is approaching 100 in total for Crawley.

Having started his career with Millwall, Craig earned a move to Crystal Palace in 2007 before returning to the Den a year later. In three spells with the club, the central defender went on to make 322 appearances and become something of a cult figure in the capital.

The 37-year-old racked up more than a century of appearances for both Brentford and and Bristol Rovers, before joining Crawley in the summer of 2020.

Striker Tom Nichols joined Crawley from Bristol Rovers in 2020 and has proved to be an astute signing for the Reds. 

A product of the Exeter City Academy, Nichols made his debut for the Grecians away at Sheffield Wednesday at the end of the 2010/11 campaign. He went on to score 32 goals in 64 league starts, which led to a move to Peterborough United. He spent just one season at London Road though before moving closer to home to join Bristol Rovers.

He struggled for goals at the Memorial Ground but has found his feet in the couple of years since joining Crawley, and has three to his name so far this season.

Crawley pulled off a major coup when they announced the signing of striker Dom Telford in the summer.

The 25-year-old was courted by several clubs after finishing as top scorer in Sky Bet League Two with Newport County last season. Telford scored 25 league goals in what was by far the best campaign of his career.

The former Blackpool, Bury and Plymouth Argyle man has scored two goals in eight appearances so far this season, with his first league goal for the club coming in Crawley’s sole win of the campaign against Stockport.

Last league meeting

The two sides played out a goalless draw when they last met in Sky Bet League Two in April 2017, the season Rovers went on to win promotion into the third tier.