Crawley Town remain a club close to Steve Evans' heart but the Stevenage boss will put sentiment to one side for 90 minutes when his new club head to Sussex.

The Glaswegian was in charge at Broadfield for five years from 2007, lifting the club from the National League to the brink of League One before departing for Rotherham United.

And Boro's trip is one he has been looking forward to since the fixtures were announced.

He said: "There’s been a change in owners but behind the scenes, the troops in the offices and the stewards and the same as when I was there for sure.

"My brother still lives close by, he goes and watches them regularly, Paul Raynor still lives in the town so it is a great place to go back to.

"It’s one I’ve always been welcomed with open arms and I’ve gone back and won and gone back and got beat.

"The feeling I have driving in and driving away doesn’t change.

"It’s always a club that will be close to my heart but I am there representing and very much in love with Stevenage so we have to go there and produce a performance."

And he is anticipating a tough game against a club with a new direction and under a manager he has not crossed paths with yet.

Evans said: "When you break down their squad, you can see where their money has been spent.

"I can’t criticise the owners. Their trying to do things that are slightly different and I can’t knock that.

"It is intuitive and the bottom line is Kevin Betsy is a young man, that I have only watched at a distance at arsenal where he developed the U18s and the 23s.

"I’m sure he’ll have a good career and he has some really good players to pick from and that will make our test there difficult."

Boro go there third in the League Two table after a fifth straight home win so far this campaign.

Their only defeats have come away from the Lamex although the performances have not been majorly worrying to the manager, with two wins and a draw as well.

He said: "When you break it all down, our home form is super and there is an objective to keep that going.

"But it is impractical or unlikely that you are going to win every home game so we have to turn our away form around.

"And it isn’t bad. Our performances have been good in the main and we’ve broken down the reasons we have lost games to key moments.

"We lost in the 90th minute at Salford but we possibly deserved to lose if you look at it in totality.

"Bradford was harsh but you cannot give a goal away in five minutes to a side with a big support and one of the best squads in the league.

"That was a big game for us, key chances came and went and goals change games."

And that is one area that the Boro boss wants to see better stats in.

"We have to improve," he said. "There is no doubt when you look at the xG in terms of chances made, we’re the highest in League Two.

"That’s commendable for the amount of shots we are taken but it is not overly commendable when you are not taking the chances we’ve got.

"What we are certainly going to keep encouraging is the boys having pops at goal and keep putting balls into the box

"We always tell strikers they will miss chances but a failure on their part is when they are not there to miss chances.

"We’ll keep doing it but it is right that this is a stat we need to improve on and quickly if we are to stay at the top of this league as it is always proving to be really competitive."