Next Up: Northampton Town at Home

City’s home woes continued, although a late equaliser will hopefully have provided something of a fillip to City’s fortunes going into what must now be dubbed a six-pointer on Tuesday night. Paul Tisdale continued to ring the changes against Dagenham & Redbridge, and it’s expected that further changes will take place for the visit of Northampton. Elliot Richards managed to bedazzle the visiting keeper into a mistake, and he is pushing for a start while David Wheeler will hope to keep his place in the starting line up. John O’Flynn is another player hoping for a recall as Tisdale likes to rotate his squad, although Jamie Reid got the nod on Saturday from the bench.

When the pundits were making their predictions at the start of the season, it’s likely that very few had Northampton to be firmly in the bottom two entering the last ten or so games of the season. However, a slow start continued into a general malaise through the season, costing Aidy Boothroyd his job after a home thrashing by fellow strugglers Wycombe. The Cobblers somehow persuaded Chris Wilder to swap a promotion fight with Oxford for a relegation battle, and he, backed by a decent budget, has overseen something of an improvement and Northampton go into Tuesday night’s match on the back of a four match unbeaten run, including a 1-1 draw away to promotion hopefuls Scunthorpe on Saturday. Goals have been a problem all season, the Cobblers only managing to score three on one occasion all the way back in August. To this end Wilder has brought in Emile Sinclair, and he has notched two goals in eight games. Northampton will have to make do without the suspended Ricky Ravenhill, while former City loanee Chris Hackett will hope to start. Another name missing is Kevin Amankwaah, the full back surprisingly released in January has now linked up with Salisbury City.

The match at Sixfields was possibly redolent of the malaise at Northampton this season – the hosts took an early lead through Jacob Blyth, but this lead was cancelled out by Scot Bennett. Northampton pressed, and were described by Paul Tisdale as the best side City had played up to that point, but a 90th minute John O’Flynn goal earned City their first ever win at Sixfields, in fact their first win at Northampton since 1972. City will hope for a repeat of last season’s match at the Park, which ended with a convincing 3-0 win (Nicholls OG, Cureton, Gosling). Northampton have a healthy head to head lead in Football League encounters, with 43 wins to City’s 28 (28 draws).

Match Officials: http://www.exeweb.com/2014/03/10/match-officials-northampton-town-at-home/