Accrington Stanley look to build on their victory against Oxford United as they play host to relegation threatened Crewe Alexandra at the Wham Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Kick-off is at 15:00 GMT.
Stanley will be looking to get their second win of the week after getting their first victory of 2022 in midweek against Oxford United.
While the Railwaymen will be looking to end a week where they lost to Gillingham and Plymouth Argyle by beating the Lancashire side to boost their safety hopes.
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Team news
John Coleman will most likely be without midweek scorer John O’Sullivan after he hobbled off with a hamstring injury in the midweek win against Oxford United.
Star striker Colby Bishop and midfielder Joe Pritchard were both back in training this week but this fixture will likely come too early for the pair.
Crewe will be without their top scorer when they visit the Wham stadium as French striker Mikael Mandron suffered a serious knee injury away to Gillingham.
Rio Adebisi, Scott Kashket and Ben Knight are still injury absentees for the visitors as David Artell confirmed in his pre-match press conference that they were still all in boots.
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Predicted lineups
Accrington Stanley: Savin, Clark, Nottingham, Sykes, Amankwah, Pell, Butcher, Hamilton, Leigh, McConville, Adedoyin
Crewe Alexandra: Jaaskelainen, Alebiosu, Sass-Davies, Offord, Uwakwe, Lowery, Murphy, Finney, Agyei, Sambou, Long
Stanley come into this game after ending the wait for their first victory of 2022 with a 2-0 win at home to Oxford United on Tuesday night.
Accrington won thanks to a first half goal by John O’Sullivan and a late second goal by Ethan Hamilton.
Stanley will be looking to win back-to-back games for the third time this season when they take on Crewe on Saturday afternoon.
Crewe go into this encounter on a five game winless run that dates back to January 12 when they beat Charlton Athletic 2-1.
In midweek the Railwaymen lost 1-4 at the hands of play-off hopefuls Plymouth Argyle in a game they took the lead in when Christopher Long opened the scoring on the 19th minute.
However, they conceded four times in the second half to condemn themselves to a fourth straight loss in League One.
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Ones to watch
With star striker Colby Bishop still on the sidelines, Stanley need to find goals from elsewhere and so far this season it has been Ethan Hamilton on hand to help the ball into the back of the net.
The 23-year-old midfielder is the Lancashire sides second top goal scorer with six goals this League One season.
After a goal midweek against Oxford United the midfielder will be looking to make it two in two games to cushion the blow of no Bishop.
Like Stanley, Crewe are also missing their top scorer as Mikael Mandron is currently out with a knee injury.
A January signing from Fortuna Sittard, Bassala Sambou is a player that may grasp this opportunity for more game time and prove that he was worth the 18-month contract Crewe gave him.
The former Everton youth academy product is now 24 and needs to turn his early promise into goals if Crewe Alexandra are to stand a chance of staying in the division and beating Accrington Stanley on Saturday.
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Previous meetings
The last time these teams met was August 21 when Stanley ran out 1-0 winners thanks to an early goal by centre-half Michael Nottingham.
Crewe centre back Luke Offord will be hoping not to repeat the fate of that reverse fixture this Saturday as he was sent off late in that game.
In terms of overall record against each other the two teams are evenly matched with eight wins each and one draw in the 17 meetings.
So both teams will be looking to take the lead in terms of the head to head statistic this weekend at the Wham Stadium.
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Where to watch on TV
This game isn’t being broadcast live on TV but both sets of fans outside the UK and Ireland can watch the game using the iFollow service on their clubs' website.