Stockport at home Tuesday night 04/03/25

[GrangeParkCobbler]

We've got a game tomorrow!! Stockport County are the visitors to Sixfields for this Tuesday night fun fest.

County come to us sitting 4th in the table, four points behind Wycombe in 2nd and 6 points ahead of 7th placed Bolton. The Hatters will be seeking a return to the second flight for the first time since 2002, a year which saw the end of a five year stint at Championship level.
Before and after the war they spent most of their time in the 3rd Division North with the 70's and 80's seeing seasons of struggle and many lower end fourth tier finishes. Danny Begara took the managers hotseat in 1989 and oversaw a purple patch for the Cheshire side, with two promotions and no fewer than four Wembley appearances in both the playoffs and Trophy finals, losing them all!

Financial issues were the order of the day in the late 2000's and into the 2010's with three relegations in four seasons seeing the club end up in the Conference North where they spent six long seasons before promotion back to the National League in 2019. Now after three promotions in six seasons they look for a fourth and are definitely upwardly mobile.

This season they have won 17 of their 34 games, the most recent of which was a 2-1 success over Blackpool on Saturday in front of over 10500 fans. They have the sixth best away record in the league, six wins and five defeats on their travels so far, with those victories coming at Blackpool, Shrewsbury, Burton, Reading, Leyton Orient and Wigan, though they were defeated last time on their travels at Cambridge. That defeat was only the third where they have failed to score on their travels and they've not been involved in a goalless draw away from home for over a year.

Dave Challinor, who made 100 appearances as a player for County has now overseen 193 games in charge of the club winning an impressive 106 of those against just 45 defeats. Challinor also had winning records as a manager at Hartlepool and AFC Fylde before joining Stockport in November 2021, a date which makes him the third longest serving boss in the division behind Nigel Clough and Phil Parkinson.

Louie Barry was once again banging in goals for fun on his second loan spell from Aston Villa however he was recalled in January and sent to Championship side Hull City to further his development. Barry had bagged 16 goals before leaving in the last window. Kyle Wootton comes next in their scoring charts with nine in all competitions although none of those have come in his last five games. Benony Andresson, a 19 year old Icelandic striker, came off the bench to bag both goals in that victory against the Seasiders on Saturday. County also brought in Sam Cosgrove from Barnsley and Owen Moxon from Portsmouth after Barry's departure.

Former Cobbler Fraser Horsfall was stretchered off whilst playing for County in late December and is still missing due to that injury.

The head-to-head now stands at 17 County wins vs 21 Cobblers wins. Stockport have not won at Sixfields since 2003 albeit there have only been another four games at NN5 since then! That was their first visit to Sixfields and after three goals in the first 24 minutes the game was done and dusted. Since then McGleish and Smith goals led us to a 2-0 win on Easter Monday 2006. Bayo, Luke Guttridge, Abdul Osman and Scott Vernons only Cobblers goal helped us to a 4-0 win in 2009. It was 2-0 again in 2010 with strikes from Kevin Thornton and Michael Jacobs, and on their last visit in September 2022 goals from Sam Hoskins and Harvey Lintotts only Cobblers goal in his 59 games spell cancelled out an early Horsfall goal as we won 2-1.
The reverse fixture this season saw us come back to share the spoils thanks to Tyler McGloires injury time leveller in a 1-1 draw back in October.

Lee Swabey will be the man with the whistle for this one. He's overseen 20 games this season with 92 yellows and three reds, two of those coming in his last two games. He last reffed us in our 2-0 win over Port Vale at Sixfields last April, and last reffed County a couple of weeks later for their 2-0 win over Morecambe in League 2.

[Deepcut Cobbler]

Northampton Town FC (First Team) v Stockport County FC (First Team)
Football League 1   
Referee: Swabey, Lee
Assistant Referee: Flynn, Daniel
Assistant Referee: Morris, Richard
Fourth Official: Howard, Paul

[Zen Master]

Last seasons home fixture was the rare occasion that Hylton had a positive influence on a game.

[west stand oap]

Our home record against Stockport is pretty good as we have won 16 of the 26 games, drawn 7 and Stockport have only won 3, let's hope that is still the case after tomorrows game. We have won all of the last 4 home games and 8 of the last 9. However come here in good form as in their last 9 games they have won 7, drawn 1 and lost 1 (surprisingly at Cambridge), scoring 14 and only conceding 6. Other teams in the lower half of the table who they have dropped points to on their travels are Mansfield, Crawley, Rotherham and Bristol Rovers all games finishing 1-1.

In their 34 games to date they have scored more than 1 goal 14 times (5 away) but only failed to score 5 times (3 away).
They have conceded more than 1 goal only 7 times (4 away) and kept 13 clean sheets (5 away).
So from that we can see that they rarely fail to score and don't often concede more than once, so it is likely that we will need to score to obtain a positive result and as we have only scored more than 1 goal in 2 of our last 15 games we need to improve on that.

McGeehan will be back from his suspension (he still has plenty of games to get another 5 yellows for a further 3 game ban) and it will be interesting to see who has to give way. KN says Eyoma may be back in contention so possibly on the bench. I think this is another game where we need to employ the high press to not allow them time on the ball.

It seems that Stockport have not asked for the extra tickets for the east stand but have sold over 800 of their south stand tickets so we may finally have a Tuesday night crowd of over 6000.

[Shoemaker]

0-2

[Razor]

Another Tuesday night struggle incoming

[F30]

The posiitivity brigade are getting in early 😉

[Manwork04]

I have a very bad feeling about this game.

[DrillingCobbler]

Tough one this evening but the teams either side of them in the division, we've taken points off of in recent times. So no reason to think we cant get something.

If I was offered 3 points from the next 3 games though, Id absolutely take them!

Probably need another 12 points so 1 point a game. So we are still very much in the position where games are not must wins as things stand...

If they don't turn up near their best then we stand a chance. So the onus has surely got to be on us stopping them being their best. Pressing them hard from the off, getting in their faces...making their lives difficult. If we sit back and let them come at us we will almost certainly lose because they do have better players as their budget will enable them to have. So our best chance is to go all guns blazing. Much like we did against Barnsley but sometimes the extra quality tells and it did last week but that rarely happens at this level regardless of the opposition (where a team scores two goals of such high quality). Failing to score during that first 15 minutes when we were all over them cost us, as it did again against Exeter so taking our chances is key. I think we need to get Hoskins further up the pitch from the off, we surely have enough players back now to play someone else in his wingback position? He is our best finisher and we have to learn from the last couple of games that we are not in a position to play our best finisher so far back (regardless of his poor goal return this season) when we have other options available.

It should be a good game and we are in decent form even if our last two results have been disappointing. The performances from those arguably warranted 4 points as opposed to 1. We must keep the faith and keep doing what we are doing!

[Gustavo Palcrice]

This is a must-win game.

[everbrite]

The posiitivity brigade are getting in early 😉

Precisely, let them go and do one! As some say on here!

[therealpattcobb]

Thinking of going.
However my nephew can do one 

Last week £36 for adult and under 14
McDonalds because "Uncle Gary I haven't had any tea, but dad's given me £10"
Price £14

sweets from the stall in the West Stand

"I'd prefer the West Stand Uncle please!"

£53

Is it another shot in the dark tonight as to who is fit who isn't. what system will we play...

[DavCobb]

Thinking of going.
However my nephew can do one 

Last week £36 for adult and under 14
McDonalds because "Uncle Gary I haven't had any tea, but dad's given me £10"
Price £14

sweets from the stall in the West Stand

"I'd prefer the West Stand Uncle please!"

£53

Is it another shot in the dark tonight as to who is fit who isn't. what system will we play...

This could easily be mitigated by giving him £1 to visit Poundland for sweets and leaving him on the hill to watch. Might want to provide him with a blanket if you want to be his favourite uncle. You can fill him in on any goals at the other end.

[Razor]

The posiitivity brigade are getting in early 😉

Enthusiasm has taken a dive after last week's games, the injury to Shaw and the baffling decision to bring Burge back.

3 points tonight would help change that of course

[threeinabed]

Enthusiasm has taken a dive after last week's games, the injury to Shaw and the baffling decision to bring Burge back.

3 points tonight would help change that of course

nothing baffling about bringing burge back - when fit he is a much better keeper than tzanev.

[west stand oap]

My logic says Exeter who had lost 7 of their last 10 didn't lose against us so Stockport who have won 7 won't win. Always look on the bright side of life.

[west stand oap]

Ticket sales looking rather grim, worse than last Tuesdays game. There must be about 300 available in the west stand.

[Manwork04]

nothing baffling about bringing burge back - when fit he is a much better keeper than tzanev.

I think he used to be, but not so sure now, it’s very hard on Tzanez, anyway not to worry Burge will be injured soon and we will see the return of our Antipodean keeper.

[Razor]

nothing baffling about bringing burge back - when fit he is a much better keeper than tzanev.

Disagree. He was solid in his first year and played a part in our promotion which shouldn't be forgotten but he has been consistently below par for 2 years now. And proved he cannot be relied upon in terms of fitness. Tzanev came in and did very well, played his part in our upturn in form and then gets dropped for (as far as I can see) no real reason. Sends an awful message.

[SC Cobbler]

I'm fancying a 1-0 win tonight. Roberts with the winner too.