On Saturday Celtic enter the FA Cup in the second round with an away day to Barrow. Despite efforts by all parties to stagger the kick-off times with the other FA Cup game in Barrow (Holker Old Boys v Harrogate Town), the match is scheduled to go ahead at 3pm.
Celtic are coming into the game with a new manager, albeit a temporary one. Peter Wragg will hopefully be the man to steer Celtic to their second consecutive victory in a cup game this season, though the opponents will be somewhat tougher.
Barrow are coming into the game on the back of a start of disastrous proportions similar to Celtic?s. They do have a home win under their belt: a win against Worksop at the end of August. They also have two away wins to their name ? one of which came against Celtic. Previous league meetings of the two clubs have seen four wins apiece, with Celtic only winning one of those at Holker Street: the last one.
Barrow have also been thumped at home by Redditch United 6-1. They also lost their last home game against Hucknall Town 3-0 and drew the home game before that against Ashton. They have not scored a goal for three games, though their top scorer (Jamie Patterson with 3) is likely to start. Barrow are troubled by injury and Heffernan was dismissed against Altrincham, so the likely starting line-up for Barrow is:
1. Adam Capp
2. Mark Salmon
3. Steve Ridley
4. Kirk Wheeler
5. Jamie Cotterill
6. Karl Colley
7. Steve Flitcroft
8. Graham Anthony
9. Michael Kewley
10. Gavin Knight
11. Jamie Patterson
How Wragg will set out his stall for this game is really a bit of an unknown quantity, but with the injury problem lessening my best guess is:
1. Craig Dootson
2. Dave German
3. Tony Whealing
4. Paul Sykes
5. Barrie Keeling
6. Nathan Wharton
7. Scott Bonsall
8. Kev Parr
9. David Moores
10. Andy Hayward
11. Steve Smith
This is a combative midfield as Barrow are competent and will punish us if we don?t defend properly, and hopefully at least one of the midfielders will be able to drop back to help out the defence during attacks. At some point, when the Barrow defence is tiring, Chris Denham could make an appearance and his blistering pace could turn the game, or (hopefully) make it safe.
The prediction algorithm hasn?t been told about the magic of the FA cup, or new manager syndrome, but it still gives us a narrow 1-0 victory.
Let?s hope the result?s right but Celtic can emulate Redditch and have a convincing win.