Crewe Alexandra return to Gresty Road on Saturday with the aim of returning to form and keeping their League Two automatic promotion hopes alive this season, having lost ground in the midst of a slight slump in recent weeks.
A strong run across January and February, in which they picked up seven wins and two draws from a 10-match span, left the Railwaymen as frontrunners in the race for a top-three finish with 61 points on the board from 34 outings, but they have failed to extend that hot streak since the beginning of March.
Indeed, Lee Bell’s side now head into the weekend in fifth place having only managed three points from the four attempts since, firstly losing 3-2 at home to Morecambe before leaving empty-handed from a trip to Doncaster Rovers as goals from Hakeeb Adelakun and Tommy Rowe condemned them to a 2-0 defeat.
They were able to return to winning ways at home to relegation-threatened Sutton United last Tuesday, with Elliott Nevitt netting the only goal of the game, only to meet Milton Keynes Dons in a six-pointer at the weekend and fall short in an eventual 3-1 loss, having drawn level early through Nevitt, only for Matthew Dennis to quickly restore the hosts’ lead with his second of the game before Stephen Wearne added a third.
Having fallen three points behind fourth-placed MK Dons and the top three as a result of that defeat and their recent dip in form, Crewe Alexandra will be desperate to bounce back on home turf at the weekend in a bid to regain ground in their pursuit of automatic promotion.
In their way stand a visiting side who find themselves seven points and two places worse off in the top seven, with the aim of strengthening their standing in the playoff spots.
links >> Stream 1 HD Stream 2 HD Stream 3 HD Stream 4 HD
In their bid to win promotion back to League One at the second time of asking this term, AFC Wimbledon have staged an impressive climb into the top seven this month, after a four-match winless run in February left them on 47 points from 34 games.
Johnnie Jackson’s side bounced back in style from that slump, firstly beating rivals MK Dons 1-0 thanks to Ronan Curtis’s injury-time winner, before taking a point from a goalless stalemate away at Grimsby Town.
Back-to-back 2-0 wins over Notts County and Gillingham followed, triggering a climb into the playoff spots, but the Dons were unable to extend their hot streak any further at the weekend, hosting Newport County in a six-pointer and falling to a 2-0 defeat with Bryn Morris and Kyle Jameson netting goals either side of the interval for the visitors.
