On Saturday, weather permitting, Celtic are at home to face Gainsborough Trinity. Trinity are currently fourth on forty-two points, ten places and fourteen points ahead of Celtic. Kick off is 3pm and tickets are available on the gate or online.

Trinity might have lost their last (and most recent) away match at Morpeth and lost two out of their last three away matches (beating Stafford and losing to Hyde), but these are the only two games they have lost away from home this season. They have won eight and drawn three of their other eleven away games so far. Nobody has lost fewer games this season, with four in total putting them level with South Shields, and with only two away losses, only Hyde are level with them.

Only Hyde and FC United have conceded fewer away goals than their eleven, whilst nobody has conceded fewer than their twenty-two overall, giving them the best defence in the league, conceding at an average of 0.8 goals away and 0.9 overall. They have kept five of their nine clean sheets away from home. Clayton Donaldon’s sixteen goals puts him top of their league goal scorers’ chart, and puts him second in the league goal scorers’ chart behind Regan Linney of FC United. Gainsborough’s Liam Waldock is right behind him on twelve and fourth in the league goal scorers’ chart, between them scoring the bulk of Trinity’s forty-seven goals and helping Trinity secure the best attack in the league, thirty of their goals came away from home, giving them the best away attack in the league also, scoring at a rate of 2.3 goals away and 1.9 overall. They have failed to score twice away from home and twice at home. Both of their failures to score resulted in losses at Hyde and Morpeth.

In the last thirty-five years, we’ve played Trinity fifty-eight times. We have a lot of history. They have visited twenty-eight times in that period, with Celtic winning eighteen, Gainsborough winning three and there have been seven draws. Their last visit was a 1-1 draw last season, with a header from Stephen Brogan culminating a move he started in his own half cancelling out Jovon Makama’s early opener. Due to covid, their previous visit was in 2020, when Trinity won 2-1, Adam O’Reilly’s opener in the fist half undone by a five minute moment of madness in the second allowing Trinity to snatch the lead and the win. Our last win was the season before in 2018, when we won 2-1 after dominating for ninety minutes and Scott Bakkor and Matty Wolfenden giving Celtic the cushion for a stoppage time onslaught that brought Ross Hannah a consolation goal.

In Trinity’s last match, the 2-0 away loss to Morpeth, Gainsborough lined up as:
1. Matthew Yates
2. George Hornshaw
3. Joe West
4. Bailey Conway
5. Hayden Cann
6. Dylan Coghill
7. Curtis Durose
8. Jay Glover
9. Clayton Donaldson
10. Liam Waldock
11. Fraiser Preston

In Celtic’s last league match, the 4-0 away win over Nantwich, Celtic lined up as: 1. Greg Hall
2. Ciaran Summers
3. Raheem Hanley
4. Kyle Harrison
5. Dahrius Waldron
6. Tom Miller
7. Theo Bailey-Jones
8. Domaine Rouse
9. Djavan Pedro
10. Chris Dagnall
11. Harry Benns

Raul Correia, Matty Carson and Nathan Caine all missed Celtic’s win with niggly injuries and will need re-assessing ahead of Saturday’s tie.

A win could see us go twelfth, with Ashton (away at Marine) and Stafford (at home to Marske) currently two and three points ahead of us, with identical goal differences. A loss could see Atherton (home to South Shields), Lancaster (at home to Matlock), and Morpeth (at home to Radcliffe) all overtake us and drop us to seventeenth. Nantwich (away at Whitby) have an eight goal difference to make up in order to overtake us. More importantly, a win moves us three points closer to safety.