Match Preview :- Buxton - Saturday November 23rd, 2019 (15:00:00)

On Saturday, Celtic are back at home for the first time in weeks to face Buxton (kick off 3pm). This is only our fourth Saturday home league match this season and the club would love to see as many fans turn out as possible! Buxton are currently in twentieth in the league on eleven points, fifteen places and fourteen points below Celtic, though they do have two games in hand on us.

Buxton had a terrible start to the season, going ten games before they got their first win, losing six and drawing three before they demolished Grantham Town at home 7-0. Since then they have only recorded one more win in their last five games, beating Witton Albion at home 2-0. They have yet to win away from home, though they have had three draws on the road, an opening day draw away at Scarborough, a goalless draw at Gainsborough and, in their last league game, a 1-1 draw away at Atherton (thanks to a deep into stoppage time penalty for Atherton). Their worst away game was the game after their 7-0 thrashing of Grantham when they lost 7-0 at FC United.

On the road this season, they have scored six goals in seven matches, scoring most of their twenty-two goals at home. They have only failed to score in two matches on the road, both of them in their last three home games, most recently in mid-October at Gainsborough. They score an average of 1.4 goals per game (0.9 away). They have conceded eighteen of their twenty-nine goals away from home at a rate of 2.6 goals per game (two goals per game overall), and the Gainsborough game is the only away game that they have kept a clean sheet, from four clean sheets overall. Diego De Girolamo is their top scorer, getting seven goals, only one of which was away.

We have already played Buxton this season, we had a goalless draw in Buxton at the end of August. Last season we played them four times, both games at Bower Fold were draws, 1-1 in the league with Neil Kengni's late strike cancelling out Michael Clarke's early second half own goal. We also played them twice in the FA Trophy after they held us to a goalless draw at home, we went to Buxton and won 2-1 thanks to Liam Tongue's equaliser and Chris Sharp's winner. In the last seven matches, that was our only win over them home or away in recent years. Our last competitive win over Buxton at Bower Fold was in 1991, when we beat them 3-1, though that was only five visits ago.

In Buxton's last match, the 1-1 draw with Atherton, they lined up as:
1. Grant Shenton
2. Kyle Harrison
3. Alex Brown
4. Nico De Girolamo
5. Connor O'Grady
6. Brad Roscoe
7. Mark Howarth
8. Aaron Chalmers
9. Diego De Girolamo
10. Jude Oyibo
11. Brian Wilson

Goalkeeper Grant Shenton and Jude Oyibo were with us in the 16/17 season, whilst Aaron Chalmers was with us for two seasons between 2015 and 2017.

Celtic's last game was our 1-0 away win over Matlock that pushed us into the playoffs. In that match, we lined up as:
1. Alex Fojtíček
2. Declan Walker
3. Kallum Mantack
4. Ross Dent
5. Stephen O'Halloran
6. Nathan Valentine
7. Scott Bakkor
8. Anthony Whitehead
9. Craig Hobson
10. Darius Osei
11. Jonathan Ustabasi

A win for Celtic would keep us in the top five, though we'd a remarkable result to move up to fourth, as Warrington (who are away at Mickleover) are ten goals ahead of us on goal difference. Five teams are within three points of us, FC United who aren't in league action, Nantwich (away at Ashton), Radcliffe (at home to Basford), Witton (at home to Scarborough) and Hyde (away at Stafford). With the right set of results, we can start to cement our top five status.

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