Colchester United V Brentford
Tuesday, 23rd March – 19:45 GMT
English League One
Matt’s Tip: Colchester United to WIN – 1.91 Coral
Alternative: Colchester United to keep a Clean Sheet – 2.40 PaddyPower
After a poor run of form, Colchester (1.91 Coral) will try to kick-start their promotion push once again with victory at home to 15th placed Brentford (4.50 SkyBet). The U’s were shaping up as genuine automatic promotion challengers with a third of the season gone, with wins coming in bountiful supply, but the past month or so has brought about a dry spell for Aidy Boothroyd‘s men, whom have now gone four games without a win in League One.
Some of the Colchester players must be feeling a tad homesick after spending large portions of the past month away from Essex. If so, it’s shone through in their recent results after a drab four match spell without a win, of which three were defeats and all three were away ones. Losing games is always going to be costly no matter where you end up losing them and Colchester are no exception to the rule. However, they do return back to a happy hunting ground this Tuesday, to the Weston Homes Community Centre, a venue they’ve lost just twice at all season.
To sum up just how strong a side Colchester are when playing at home, they’ve lost just once their since the turn of the year and are unbeaten in their last five at home in the league. Four of the five were wins, two of which were decent ones over MK Dons, a fellow play-off contender, and Carlisle Utd. However, what caught our eye the most was despite their recent injury woes of late, Ben Williams in the Colchester goal has been keeping it neat and tidy at the back, with the U’s not conceding at home in 290 minutes of play. This isn’t just a rare run of defensive form either as the Colchester defence is one of the sturdiest and most reliable defences in the league, having conceded just 14 at home all season (fourth strongest defence in the league).
Their opponents are a stubborn sort prone to drawing games, but that’s generally only the case at home and they’re instead seen losing the majority of their away fixtures nowadays, with their 1-0 victory away at Stockport County over the weekend, a team at the foot of the table, their first away win this year, while they’ve lost three of their last five games on the road, of which only one was against what I would call ‘stiff opposition’. They do have a knack of scoring mind, having done so in five of their last seven away outings, but they rarely trouble teams enough because of their lack of fire-power, with The Bees scoring exactly 1 goal in 7 of 17 away games this season, while they’ve only surpassed that one goal marker on one rare occasion, that being right at the start of the season in a 3-1 win at Carlisle. They have since been poor in front of goal and have failed to score in just over half of their away encounters. A statistic which should extend further after the visit to Colchester.
Andy Scott, the Brentford manager, will also be missing Ryan Dickson at full-back position, which takes away Brentford’s threat down the flank, while Colchester’s biggest absentee will be Kayode Odejayi, one of the clubs top goalscorers this season with 9 goals.
