On Tuesday night (kick off 7:45pm), Celtic are at home to face one of the league's most in form teams: Gainsborough Trinity. The Lincolnshire outfit are currently sixteenth, on thirty-one points, seven points and eight places below eighth placed Celtic, though they have played three games fewer.
After a woeful start to the season that saw Trinity win just twice between the start of the season and the end of December, they have really turned their fortunes around and won six of their last seven, and are now without a loss since the start of December, losing just one of their last ten. Though they won their opening home game, 2-0 against Whitby, it took them until the start of October to pick up their next win with ten losses, four draws and two wins in their opening sixteen games. This left them rooted to the foot of the table. Christmas saw the turn of their fortunes, and only an away game, again against Whitby, has seen them drop points since Boxing Day. They picked up their first away win of the season on Boxing Day, beating Grantham 5-1 and since then have beaten both Atherton and Radcliffe away from home.
Simon Russell is just about holding onto the leading scorer spot at Trinity with six goals, overtaking previous leading scorer Ashley Worsfold, who departed in November. On average they are scoring 1.8 goals per game away from home (1.6 overall), whilst conceding 1.8 goals per game away (1.4 overall). They have scored slightly more on their travels, with twenty-one of their thirty-nine coming on the road. They also concede more away from home, with twenty-one of their thirty-six coming away from Northolme. They have failed to score only twice away, and seven times overall, keeping a single clean sheet away from home (2-0 against Radcliffe) from six in total. In their last five games they have scored eleven and conceded four.
We have played Gainsborough a lot, over the years. Their last visit was September last season when we beat them 2-1 thanks to goals at either end of the match from Scott Bakkor and Matty Wolfenden. The last meeting between the two sides was in the Northolme, when Trinity won 1-0. In their last ten visits, Celtic have had the upper hand, with six wins and three draws. Trinity's last win at Bower Fold was in 2009, when they beat us 2-1. Over the last thirty years, they have visited twenty-six times, winning twice (the other time was 2006, beating us 2-0), with Celtic winning eighteen. There have been six draws, including the nail biting 4-4 on the last day of the 2015 season where the point was enough to keep Celtic up.
Trinity's last match was a 1-0 home win over Basford, in which they lined up as:
1. George Willis
2. James Williamson
3. Jamie Green
4. Kingsley James
5. Will Thornton
6. Nathan Stainfield
7. Declan Bacon
8. Michael Williams
9. Gregg Smith
10. Alex Wiles
11. Nicky Walker
In Celtic's last match, the 2-2 home draw with league leaders South Shields, Celtic lined up as:
1. Alex Fojtíček
2. Declan Walker
3. Scott Metcalfe
4. Anthony Whitehead
5. Stephen O'Halloran
6. Chris Smalley
7. Scott Bakkor
8. Patrick Lacey
9. Craig Hobson
10. Darius Osei
11. Adam O'Reilly
Craig Hobson made it through an hour on Saturday, whilst Jonathan Ustabasi was still absent through injury.
Celtic are level on points with Witton, who aren't playing on Tuesday, giving Celtic a chance to rise a place. We are currently six points off fifth placed Nantwich (also not playing), five points behind sixth placed Warrington (away at Mickleover) and fourteen of top spot! There are four teams within three points of Celtic, should we lose, with Scarborough level on points but not playing, Mickleover (hosting Warrington) are point behind, whilst Hyde (not playing) and Radcliffe (away at Matlock) are two behind.