Match Preview :- Grantham Town - Tuesday March 27th, 2018 (19:45:00)

On Tuesday, Celtic host Grantham Town for the rearranged fixture (kick off 7:45). Grantham are currently fourth in the league on sixty-one points, fourteen places and seventeen points ahead of Celtic, having played a game more. There will be a match centre and Twitter feed for the game.

Grantham are thirteen points off top spot with eleven games to go and will have by no means given up on the title, though realistically a play-off spot is more likely. They have generally been very consistent, despite a dip in September that saw them drop to mid-table, they have been in the top five for most of the season. They have won both of their last games, at home to Barwell 4-1, and away at Shaw Lane 0-2, but had suffered a serious wobble by their season prior to this, winning once in seven, losing two and drawing four.

In Lee Shaw, they have the league's top goal scorer, currently on twenty-nine goals. Andrew Wright is the closest to him, on ten, but Shaw has scored nearly half of their seventy one goals and two thirds of their twenty-nine away goals. They score at a rate of two goals per game (1.7 away from home). They're no slouches at the other end, either, with the league's third best defence, conceding forty-one goals all season (twenty-one away from home), at a rate of 1.2 goals per game. Grantham have kept four clean sheets on the road and four at home, whilst failing to score just three times on the road (seven in total), with the last time failing to score on the road back in September against Altrincham.

We have only met Grantham once, when we arguably could have won but for a shot over from almost on the goal-line by Liam Dickinson, but the game ended with Grantham's first goalless draw at home of the season.

Grantham's last match was the 4-1 home win over Barwell. In that match, Grantham lined up as:
1. Kieran Preston
2. Tom Potts
3. Oliver Luto
4. Rhys Lewis
5. Stefan Galinski
6. Tom Batchelor
7. Danny Meadows
8. Jack McGovern
9. Zayn Hakeem
10. Lee Shaw
11. Curtis Burrows

Celtic's last match was the 2-0 win at home to Warrington Town. In that match, we lined up as:
1. Jack Walton
2. Harrison Holgate
3. Jack Taylor
4. Danny Morton
5. Luke Ashworth
6. Ross Killock
7. Greg Wilkinson
8. Alex Honeyball
9. Liam Dickinson
10. Matty Wolfenden
11. Connor Hughes

Steve Burr has a full squad to choose from.

Celtic's recent form has been a miraculous turn around form early season, and we now sit third in the form table, with two losses in our last ten, taking two thirds of the available points, five places above Grantham in eighth who have taken fifty-two percent of the available points from their last ten matches, although they too have only lost twice in that period. A win for Celtic could lift us to sixteenth if Ashton beat Rushall; whilst a loss could see us drop a place if Whitby beat Mickleover. Just as important, a win on Tuesday could set Celtic up to get into the top half with another win, and the top ten with our games in hand!

Other games this week:
Stourbridge (47pts 15th) v Sutton Coldfield Town (29pts 24th)
Altrincham (74pts 1st) v Shaw Lane (57pts 6th)
Barwell (53pts 9th) v Stafford Rangers (50pts 11th)
Marine (41pts 21st) v Nantwich Town (48pts 14th)
Rushall Olympic (46pts 17th) v Ashton United (64pts 3rd)
Warrington Town (70pts 2nd) v Workington (52pts 10th)
Whitby Town (42pts 20th) v Mickleover Sports (48pts 12th)
Witton Albion (57pts 7th) v Halesowen Town (32pts 23rd)

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