Football – England – Blue Square Premier
Saturday 19th January 2013 – Kickoff: 1500hrs
Third from bottom club Nuneaton Town take on the pre-season promotion favourites Luton Town at Liberty Way on Saturday afternoon as the hosts look to continue their recent form and climb out of the relegation zone.
Nuneaton Town have recorded recent impressive wins over Tamworth 2-1 and 3-1 away at Cambridge United in midweek along with taking points off Macclesfield Town away and holding fourth placed Forest Green Rovers to a 1-1 draw last weekend. At home, Nuneaton Town have proved to be very hard to beat and have now extended their unbeaten run on home soil to ten matches.
Wins over Stockport County, Dartford and Tamworth have been almost swamped by draws (7 in total) but when you consider they haven’t been beaten by Wrexham or Forest Green, it just shows me that they’re a hard nut to crack for even the best teams in the division.
Talking of best teams in the division, Luton Town sadly do not fall into this category; the hot pre-season favourites for automatic promotion have quite frankly flattered to deceive yet again and continue to struggle to dominate at this level.
The London club currently sit outside of the play-off pack and are seven points adrift of Blue Square leaders Wrexham and despite the difference in league positions in this one, there are no guarantees of an easy game here either. Luton Town have beaten Woking 3-1 at home and destroyed bottom club Barrow 6-1 ten days ago, but both of these wins were at home, while away from home they’ve recently lost at Newport County and Woking in the return fixture.
But it’s their form on the road which gives Nuneaton more than just a glimmer of hope in this match-up; an away record of 6-2-5 19/23 is not the pedigree of automatic promotion, nor is a run of their last five matches away from home without a win and picking up just two points courtesy of draws at Mansfield Town and AFC Telford. Another defeat at Hereford United has also contributed to The Hatters failing to deliver on pre-season promise so far.
Try and ignore the fact that Nuneaton Town currently occupy one of the relegation places for a minute and consider their strong home form along with recent promising results on the road. They are currently one of the form teams in the division and with home advantage I firmly believe they have enough about them to get at least a point here. Could be a 1-1 draw today in which case my selection wins.
Pick; Nuneaton Town AH+0.5 @ 2.05 Pinnacle is excellent value and worth a poke
