Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 2:48 pm
Posts: 4809
Location: In the Armchair.
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THE CAZBAR BIG GAME PREVIEW – BARROWI don’t think we can underestimate our victory against Gillingham, they are a well organised side with a clear plan, its not just hit and hope football, and certainly in my eyes one of the better teams we have played this season, and if they can sort out their problems in front of goal, I wouldn’t be shocked to see them make the playoffs.
As for us I think we reserve our more battling displays for the better teams, but unfortunately our Achilles heel seems to be against the lower ranked clubs like Doncaster, and currently I am more concerned playing the struggling teams.
Barrow can be classified as one of the better teams as their current league position suggests but just recently they have picked up just 7 points from 7 games and not so long ago they were dumped out of the FA Cup by giant killers Maidstone Utd.
Below are the league details of both teams plus the home record of Barrow and the away record of us.
Barrow (4th) – P 29, W 13, D 12, L 5, GF 42, GA 30, Pts 50.
Dons (6th) – P 28, W 14, D 6, L 8, GF 47, GA 36, Pts 48.
Barrow (H) (12th) P 13, W 6, D 6, L 1, GF 16, GA 11, Pts 24.
Dons (A) (9th) – P 13, W 5, D 3, L 5, GF 21, GA 21, Pts 18.
Looking at those stats we can see that Barrow are no mugs at home with just the one defeat against Crewe and that in their last home game, and if Barrow are going to go up automatically or reach the playoffs it’s going to be that ability to avoid defeat as that high number of draws suggests.
Below is a closer look at their home league record with the most recent game shown first.
Barrow 1 Crewe 3
Barrow 1 Tranmere 0
Barrow 1 Accrington 1
Barrow 2 Stockport 2
Barrow 2 Walsall 0
Barrow 1 Crawley 0
Barrow 1 Morecambe 0
Barrow 0 Salford 0
Barrow 0 Kingston 0
Barrow 1 Notts County 1
Barrow 3 Doncaster 2
Barrow 1 Wrexham 1
Barrow 2 Sutton 1
Barrow have scored just 16 goals at home that ranks them 21st in LG 2, but they have conceded just 11 that ranks them joint 3rd, and those stats suggest to me it’s going to be a very tight game.
Top scorer for the Bluebirds is midfielder/winger Ben Whitfield with 9 goals in 21 games. At 5ft 5 ins he gives the impression of a Barry Bannan type player, and like Bannan he always fancies shooting on sight, but I’m going to suggest the main danger will be Cole “The Goal” Stockton. Stockton joined Barrow a couple of weeks ago on loan from Burton Albion after scoring just 1 goal in 14 games for the LG 1 side, but I think he might relish this drop down to LG 2 and help maintain Barrow’s lofty position in the LG 2 table.
The bulk of the assists are coming from summer signing Kian Spence who joined from Halifax Town after being on loan to Scarborough Athletic. Spence plays in the Payne role for Barrow and has 6 goals and 6 assists so far this season and the matchup between these two is going to be influential on the destination of the points.
In charge at Barrow is 39 year old Pete Wild and as far as I can see has no recorded playing record. His first appointment was for the England Amputees team, with other experience for Oldham Athletic and Halifax Town. He joined Barrow in May 2022 and has so far overseen 88 games with a record of W 34, D 22, L 32, giving him a Win Ratio of nearly 39%. He seems to favour a 3-5-2 system that prefers to hit teams on the break and that seems to fit with their most recent game where they had just 20% possession against Notts County and still drew 1-1.
History tells us very little as this is only the second ever meeting of the two clubs and our game at SMK proved to be very dramatic.
Alexander was in charge back then but winless in about two months but that was looking likely to change with the Dons winning 2-0 going into injury time following a first half brace by Max Dean, but two goals in 2 minutes for Barrow scuppered the win, and two days later Alexander was sacked.
Whilst I’m on the subject of GA, I find it very strange that his tenure at Bradford has followed a similar path to his time with us, a strong start at both clubs and now he can’t buy a win and the noise from the stands calling for his head grows louder every week, and they have a nasty run of fixtures coming up which makes me think he won’t last out February.
On the betting front for once we are not the favourites, and we are a fraction over 2/1, which might be worth a punt.
Barrow 26/19, Draw 5/2, MK Dons 21/10.
The Transfer Window closed last night and despite MW saying he expected it to be a quiet week, although with the added caveat of anything could still happen, Mo left on a season long loan to Exeter, meaning he won’t return now as his contract runs out at the end of the season, so that probably triggered our interest in Stoke City youngster Emre Tezgel. Emre has just 3 games under his belt for Stoke but comes to us with a good reputation scoring 10 goals in 12 games for England at U16 and U17 level.
I notice that some people have already played down this signing, but it should be said that his record is better than the record Max Dean had when he signed. It’s likely he will be on the bench on Saturday and may just get a cameo appearance …..can lightning strike twice.
In other news Leko has returned to SMK after a disastrous loan to Burton Albion that lasted just 5 minutes where he suffered a season ending injury.
Finally on the Transfer front it looks like Grant might have gone on loan to LG 1 playoff chasers Barnsley which is a bit of a strange one. Business closed at 11pm and still no confirmation, but Toby Lock later tweeted there may be news on this one later today.
So then……….I think this is going to be a very interesting game as it looks like Barrow will sit back and say, “go on see if you can score”, then try to catch us on the break when we over commit. Everything points to a draw, and I’d be happy with that, but its all going to depend on those little battles I’ve mentioned, and which Dons team turns up on the day.
Until next time.  WD
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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight
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