Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 2:48 pm
Posts: 4813
Location: In the Armchair.
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THE CAZBAR BIG MATCH PREVIEW – SALFORD CITYI have mixed feelings regarding our game against Newport County, but not even the most ardent of Exiles fans can deny we had the best of the game, the majority of possession and chances, and their keeper was certainly the busier pulling off several good saves, and it looked clear to me they were hanging on at the death and grateful of the point, but even so that doesn’t paint the full picture.
Without doubt we would have been the deserved winners but you don’t always get what you deserve in football, and it would be hard to deny they had some guilt edged chances to score, but I have to also say those chances were mostly served up by us as we did our best at times to gift them a goal with some well dodgy passing it around at the back as we tried to play it out of danger.
I’m not totally against this playing it out style that some have labelled the “MK Way”, we’ve been here before and had numerous scares and calamities …. but that it will improve over time, and it does require a certain skillset type of player, and I’m not fully convinced some are totally comfortable with it, Mac in goal certainly isn’t that convincing…. but I’m happy to stick with it for the time being, anything is better than watching the previous style that bored you senseless and was largely depressing to watch.
On Saturday we travel up to North Manchester to debut on new turf for us at Salford City, and I would think a few might make the effort to cross off this ground despite the miles involved.
For me and possibly a few others I am a bit surprised it’s taken this long for us to face Salford following their promotion to the EFL a few years back. Backed by decent money for this level they were made favourites to make the leap to the 1st Division, but despite a close shave here or there it’s never quite happened, and it’s taken us to sink a level to finally meet.
Below are the league positions and records of both clubs plus the home record of Salford and our away record.
Salford (15th) – P 18, W 6, D 3, L 9, GF 28, GA 29, Pts 21.
Dons (13th) – P 17, W 6, D 5, L 6, GF 26, GA 24, Pts 23.
Salford (H) (22nd) – P 8, W 2, D 2, L 4, GF 12, GA 14, Pts 8.
Dons (A) (12th) – P 9, W 2, D 3, L 4, GF 12, GA 14, Pts 9.
Below listed are the league results at home for Salford this season with the most recent shown first.
Salford 1 Mansfield 2
Salford 2 Swindon 2
Salford 4 Crewe 2
Salford 2 Newport 1
Salford 0 Notts County 2
Salford 1 Walsall 2
Salford 1 Accrington 2
Salford 1 Crawley 1
The gaffer at Salford is Neil Wood a former midfielder who struggled to get regular football in his 10 year career despite having signed for a host of clubs including Man Utd, Royal Antwerp, Peterborough, Burnley, Coventry, Blackpool, Oldham, Zeljeznicar in Bosnia, and finally Atherstone Town, playing just 61 games scoring 2 goals, although I could not find his stats whilst playing for Atherstone.
As a Manager/ Coach he couldn’t have served a better apprenticeship by first taking his badges at Aston Villa, and then re-joining Man Utd to take on their U15’s all the way up to the U23’s where under his guidance 17 academy players all made senior debuts for United.
In May 2022 he joined Salford City to replace Gary Bowyer who was possibly harshly sacked for narrowly missing out on the playoffs, although I shouldn’t think Bowyer was that miffed as he stepped right into the Dundee job and got them promoted to the Scottish Prem in his 1st attempt.
His record stands at P 83, W 33, D 19, L 31 with an almost 40% Win Ratio although he has the unwanted stat to his name of overseeing 5 straight defeats this season, the worst record for Salford since being promoted to the EFL in 2019.
The main danger for us looks to be Matt Smith who is in his third season at the club following a move from Millwall. He has already exceeded last year’s tally where he scored 12 goals in 47 games, this season he has netted 15 in just 22 games and is a daunting prospect in the air standing at 6ft 6 ins.
Salford have several players providing assists this season but the one that sticks out is former Don Ryan Watson who has 3 assists and 2 goals to his name this season. Watson played 27 games for us during the 2018-19 season scoring just the 1 goal and that against Charlton at home where we won 3-0 before moving to Northampton Town the following season being one of ten released at the end of that season.
At the weekend whilst we had our feet up in front of the telly Salford travelled down to Gillingham and despite having the upper hand in terms of possession still lost 3-1 with Smith and Watson combining for the Salford goal. Watson swung in an inviting cross at pace and there seemed to be little danger until Smith outmuscled the Gills defence to power home his header that shocked the home faithful as there seemed to be little chance of a goal.
On Tuesday night we entertained Northampton Town in a bit of a dead rubber tie in the BSM Trophy, that’s right, as the PJT is no more and confined to the history books with the automotive company taking over on a three year deal.
I have to say it was a slow burner but turned out a pretty decent game in the end with a couple of scorchers from Devoy and Burns, the latter filled with frustration after being almost frozen out since February last season. Charlie Waller looked hugely impressive and topped off his MOTM performance with his first senior goal, but all of the youngsters should be proud to complete a 100% record in this tournament, there is certainly reason to be hopeful for the future based on this.
Being our first ever meeting with Salford there is of course no history to report on so moving on swiftly to the match odds.
The bookies always seem cautious on us and rarely seem to offer any sort of value and once again we are installed as narrow favourites.
Salford City 7/4, Draw 13/5, MK Dons 6/4.
Finally, then it’s time for a prediction. Well, I correctly forecasted a draw against Newport County, and I’m going to take the same path this time and go for a draw again, probably 1-1 as I can’t see either defence keeping out the main protagonists, namely Max Dean for us and Matt Smith for them.
If you do fancy a bet I would suggest you look further afield and jump on the ridiculously long odds on Notts County at AFC. They are currently priced at just over 2/1 which seems a bit long to me especially after I watched them take apart Bradford City last Saturday lunch time racing to a 4-0 lead at halftime. Bradford did respond after the break, but the damage was already done, and the money was already in the bank.
Looking at us, there are a couple of prices that might warrant some attention, we are 3/1 to make the playoffs, and 12/1 to win them…. very interesting. Another price that probably deserves more than a second glance is the 40/1 about us to lift the BSM Trophy.
See you at Salford.
Until next time.  WD
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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight
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