Braintree Town vs Solihull Moors Predictions

Solihull, who’re currently in a lofty 5^th position in the National League, maintained their unbeaten run by beating Hitchin away in the FA Cup on Sunday afternoon. Now back on their own patch, Tim Flowers’ men will be looking to continue moving on up by getting the better of a struggling Braintree side.

19 matches into the National League season and it’s fair to say that it’s been anything but a vintage campaign for Saturday’s hosts, though their form has improved of late. They were beaten last time out away at Aldershot, but they’d won two on the bounce prior to that. However, while the team currently occupying 23^rd position have picked up some decent results of late, from a performance point of view, it’s not tough to see why they’re struggling.

Right from the word go, defending has been a big problem from for Braintree, even at Cressing Road. Such problems resulted in a managerial change last week. In an attempt to improve things, the hierarchy have replaced Brad Quinton with Hakan Hayrettin.

When playing in front of their own fans this season, Braintree have conceded too many goals, conceding at least once in each of their eight home matches. In addition, they’re shipping an average of 1.68 expected goals at home, while their average of just 0.83 going the other way, suggests that they’re also not doing anywhere near enough offensively.

Unlike the hosts, Solihull Moors, who finished 18^th in the National League last season, have scaled the heights this season. Saturday’s visitors are currently in 5^th position and have been playing well.

However, while their season is going swimmingly on the surface, the visitors haven’t always performed well on their travels. They won away at Maidstone in their most recent away match, though that fact that they came out of that match having given up 0.45 expected goals more than they created suggests that the 3-1 victory was slightly unwarranted.

Moreover, the visitors have made a habit of giving away more than they’ve created on their travels during the current campaign. Solihull have given up an average of 1.73 expected goals on the road, while they’re averaging just 1.01 at the other end.

The league table suggests that Solihull are the side to be with on this occasion, though if we consider the underlying data in conjunction with the prices on offer, then it’s easy to feel that the hosts are a tad overpriced.

They may be enduring a poor campaign, though having performed well in their last home match against Dover, backing Braintree to get a positive result against a Solihull side who’ve often struggled to be at their best on the road is the way to go at the prices.