Football – England – League Two
Saturday 17th November 2012 – Kickoff: 1500hrs
Improving Northampton Town take on League Two strugglers Wycombe Wanderers at their Sixfields Stadium on Saturday afternoon with the home side looking to sneak into play-off reckoning depending on other results.
The Cobblers are on a three match unbeaten run in League Two having beaten Port Vale 2-0 at home and 4-2 at Accrington Stanley along with a point at York City in a 1-1 draw. At home they’ve basically beaten the teams around them in the division such as Rotherham United 2-1, AFC Wimbledon 2-0, Exeter City 3-0 and most notably Port Vale 2-0, while their recent defeats were against league leaders Gillingham and fourth placed Bradford City.
Northampton’s home record stands at a pretty good 4-2-2 13/7, and they’ve kept four clean sheets in their eight home matches so far. Bustling striker and target man Adebayo Akinfenwa (9 goals, 2 assists) is their leading scorer and he scored a hat-trick at Accrington last weekend. He’s well supported by Ben Tozer and Chris Hackett (4 assists each) along with Clive Platt and former Walsall man Ishmel Demontagnac.
Travelling Wycombe Wanderers crashed out of the FA Cup a couple of weekends ago when they lost 1-4 at League One outfit Crewe Alexandra and there appears to be little left to play for this season already for the Buckinghamshire outfit apart from retaining their football league status.
The Chairboys sit (excuse the pun) one place above Barnet on goal difference and they have now gone five league matches without a win following defeats against Port Vale 1-4, Oxford United 1-3 and Rochdale 1-2. A brief upturn in form back in October saw them record back-to-back wins over Torquay United and Fleetwood Town, but they quickly reverted to type after those rare wins.
Wycombe’s away record stands at a modest 2-1-5 8/15, and they’ve conceded 3 goals or more on four occasions already which could spell danger again today particularly with Northampton Town’s Akinfenwa in goalscoring form.
The problem with Wycombe is their lack of goals this season with leading scorer being Joel Grant with 3 goalsand they really need Dele Adebola and Terry Gornell to start hitting the back of the net if they are to climb away from the lower reaches of the division.
I’m not sure if Wycombe will be able to cope with Akinfenwa and Co this afternoon, and my pick is largely based on Wycombe’s poor form rather than Northampton’s excellent form, but I’ll back the hosts to edge this one and outscore their opponents today – 2-1 to The Cobblers.
Pick: Northampton Town straight win @ 1.91 Pinnacle looks a good option
