On Wednesday, Celtic host Workington in the hastily re-arranged penultimate home match of the campaign (kick off 7:45pm). Workington are currently thirteenth in the league on fifty-nine points, nine places and eleven points above Celtic. There will be a match centre and Twitter feed for the game.
Workington had a great 2017, losing six matches, winning thirteen and drawing seven in their opening twenty-six matches lifting them to second by December. 2018 has been a completely different story. In seventeen matches, they have won four, drawn one and lost thirteen. Though they won away at Stourbridge and Altrincham in that time, they have lost six of their other seven away games, drawing the seventh away at Warrington, giving them one win and four losses in their last five away games.
Matlock have had nineteen different goal scorers this season, though their danger man is Scott Allison who has fourteen goals this season. Twenty-nine of their thirty-nine goals have come away from home this year at a rate of 1.4 goals per game on the road and 1.6 overall. Thirty-eight of their sixty-three conceded goals have come away from home, at a rate of 1.8 goals per away game and 1.5 overall. Workington have kept eight clean sheets this season, with only one of them coming away from home, their 1-0 win over Ashton in September. They have failed to score in seven away matches, including their most recent match, away at Matlock that they lost 2-0.
We played Workington at the start of March, beating them 4-3 in horrendous conditions in Workington, with a brace of goals from Connor Hughes and goals from Greg Wilkinson and Liam Dickinson. Workington's last visit to Bower Fold was in 2014, four years almost to the day of this visit, when Celtic won 2-0 thanks to goals from Paul Ennis and Sean McConville. Workington's last win at Bower Fold was in December 2012, when they won 4-1, with Jack Laird's equaliser breaking a goal drought of over three hundred minutes, but cancelled out by a collapse in the second half. In thirteen visits since the turn of the century, both teams have won five and there have been three draws.
Workington's last match was the 2-0 away defeat by Matlock Town on Saturday. In that match, Workington lined up as:
1. Lewis King
2. Kevin Grocott
3. Ben Turner
4. John McGrath
5. Pablo Mills
6. Alex Morris
7. Andrew Dales
8. Lewis Belgrave
9. Matthew Barnes-Homer
10. James Phillips
11. William Norcross
Celtic's last match was the 1-0 away defeat in Mickleover, yesterday. In that match, we lined up as:
1. George Sykes-Kenworthy
2. Harrison Holgate
3. Brice Pouamoun
4. Danny Morton
5. Luke Ashworth
6. Greg Wilkinson
7. Josh Ramsden
8. Oli Roberts
9. Liam Dickinson
10. Matty Wolfenden
11. Jake Charles
Ross Killock, Tom Brown, Jack Taylor and Alex Honeyball are all out, possibly for the season, whilst Harrison Holgate's loan deal does not allow him to play two days in succession. Connor Hughes will be back after his suspension and Greg Wilkinson made it through ninety minutes last night.
A win could move us up two places above Marine and Whitby, whilst this is the lowest we can finish this season. However, this is game seven in ten days and the players have had only four days rest since the start of the fortnight from hell two Saturdays ago when we lost at Stourbridge. It's a punishing schedule.
Other games on Tuesday: