Blue Square Premier Play-Off Semi Final 1st Leg
Thursday 3rd May 2012 – Kickoff: 1930hrs
They finished seventeen points adrift of their opponents tonight in the Blue Square Premier, but Luton Town have a chance to destroy Wrexham’s hopes of returning to the Football League when the two sides clash at Kenilworth Road on Thursday night.
Luton re-found their form in the run-in to this campaign posting four wins and two draws in their last six matches to secure that final play-off place and now, perhaps unfairly, they are on level ground with the Dragons who finished the regular season in second place some nine points clear of third placed Mansfield Town.
This won’t worry Luton one little bit though and they have first crack at Wrexham on home turf. Luton’s home record finished up at 15-4-4 48/15 and they have the best defensive record at home in the BSP, with only Grimsby Town (51), Fleetwood Town and Mansfield (both with 50 goals) scoring more than them at home.
The Hatters also put in some great performances in the latter stages of the season with wins over Ebbsfleet, Kidderminster and most notably, Fleetwood Town away from home 2-0. Talking of Fleetwood, Stuart is Luton’s leading scorer with 11 goals, along with Crow and Morgan-Smith (both with 9 goals) and midfielder Robbie Willmott (8 goals, 5 assists) while defender Jake Howells (5 goals, 9 assists) has chipped in with some important goals and assists.
Wrexham may be excused for feeling a little hard done by as they finished runners-up to Fleetwood Town in the BSP heads and shoulders above their play-off rivals, yet they find themselves in the same boat as everyone else. Oh well, that’s the way the play-offs were designed and I guess you can’t deny the excitement and the welcome extra revenue it generates each season.
But Wrexham need to put their disappointments behind them and make sure they at least reach the final – but first they must overcome a strong Luton outfit. The Dragons, by their standards, put in some ordinary results in the run-in with no wins in five matches (including draws against Cambridge, Fleetwood and Grimsby), ordinarily considered to be good results, but in the context of the situation, was a contributing factor to them missing out on automatic promotion – oh and the losses against Alfreton and Mansfield didn’t help either.
Wrexham’s away record finished at 14-5-4 37/16, and they comfortably had the tightest defensive record on the road by some margin. I have a feeling that they may well need this on Thursday night as Luton prepare to throw the kitchen sink in order to edge an advantage.
Speight, Morrell and Pogba (19, 10 and 10 goals respectively) are the main dangermen, and this trio have also contributed 20 assists between them, so there are no shortages of attacking spark.
Luton go into this match with more confidence I feel, particularly on the back of the Fleetwood result, and I fancy them to edge a slender lead to take with them to the Racecourse ground next week. I’ll back Luton Town with a 1-0 win here.
Main Pick: Luton Town straight win @ 2.40 Ladbrokes
Value Pick: Luton Town AH-1 @ 3.55 bet365
