Football – England – Blue Square Premier
Tuesday 22nd January 2013 – Kickoff: 1945hrs
Mid-table Woking will be looking to continue their good form over the top half sides in the Blue Square Premier when they entertain second placed Newport County at their Kingfield Stadium on Tuesday night.
Woking have won four of their last five matches overall in recent weeks including wins over Lincoln City, Stockport County, Luton Town and Ebbsfleet United and they possess a pretty good home record of 8-1-4 27/19 in their return to the non-league top flight after three seasons in the BSS.
Woking have improved their home form in recent weeks and will be aiming for a fourth successive league win on home turf against the Welsh outfit who are just one point behind their counterparts Wrexham at the top of the league. But Woking fear no-one especially on home ground and with an away win at today’s opponents already under their belt (3-2 back at the end of October), they will set their stall out to further frustrate the promotion candidates here tonight.
Woking’s home record against top-half opposition though sets them up nicely again here as they’ve won 3 and drawn 1 in their encounters so far.
Newport County will no doubt be keen to avoid being the recipients of the ‘double’ at the hands of Woking tonight, but recent mixed results suggest they may not find this tussle any easier than back in October. Wins over Forest Green Rovers and Lincoln City were spoiled by defeats against the very same Forest Green who beat them 5-0 in their own back-yard and an embarrassing 0-2 home loss to Barrow at the weekend.
Away from home, Newport County have been found to be a little susceptible at times to suffer from mini-blips in form; back in early September they suffered back-to-back away defeats at Wrexham and Dartford, and then the very same thing happened in November and December where they lost to Alfreton Town and Kidderminster in consecutive away matches.
Newport’s away record stands at 7-1-4 28/22 which is okay but it may interest you to know that they’ve kept just one clean sheet in their last twenty four matches on the road which obviously gives Woking a chance again tonight. Add that to the fact that The Exiles have won just twice from their six encounters against top-half opposition away from home and I reckon we’ve got a bit of value here in this one.
Woking have been solid at home and with Newport putting in some mixed shifts of late with a more than likely chance of conceding another away goal, I’ll back the hosts with the quarter ball generously on offer from our friends at Pinnacle. Could be a 1-1 draw or Woking might even nick it 2-1.
Pick; Woking AH+0.25 @ 1.81 Pinnacle
