Northampton vs Notts County Predictions

Northampton Town began the season as one of the favourites to occupy the play-offs at the least by the end of the campaign. However, they have looked poor throughout this season so far and need to pick things up quickly.

They began the season in average fashion, losing their opening game against Lincoln City 0-1 which, considering Lincoln have looked the strongest side in the league so far, is not such a bad result. Subsequently, they drew their next two matches 2-2 with Carlisle away and Cambridge United at home. Northampton would have wanted more than two points from these games but showed good attacking prowess, particularly through striker Kevin Van Veen, and it was something to build on.

Indeed, they gained four more points from their next three matches, impressively beating Colchester 2-1 away from home and drawing against a good Tranmere side at home. However, Northampton also lost against strugglers Morecambe away from home, even though the home side had a midfielder in goal for the last ten minutes after going down to ten men.

Moreover, they have lost their last three matches in the league and cup to increase the pressure on manager Dean Austin. Although the Football League Trophy loss against League One Wycombe Wanderers can be justified, losses against Port Vale and Cheltenham cannot. These are teams that they simply have to be beating in order to have any hopes of promotion. Whereas they could only manage one shot on target against Port Vale, the home loss against a struggling Cheltenham side was simply unacceptable. It will become a worrying season if Northampton continue in this fashion.

Notts County arguably had more hype in pre-season than Northampton about a potential promotion. They had reached the play-offs in the previous season, had a talented young manager in Kevin Nolan, whilst signed a number of players like Kane Hemmings for big money in League Two. Fast forward to eight games in, they are bottom of the league without a win, Nolan has been sacked and replaced with Harry Kewell, whilst their signings haven’t set the league alight yet.

They could only muster a goalless draw at home against Cambridge United and from then lost match after match. Some of the defeats were simply embarrassing, such as home thrashings against Yeovil Town and Forest Green Rovers. Indeed, they competed well in others and were unlucky, such as the 3-2 loss to Newport, in which they conceded an injury-time winner.

Consequently, the consecutive losses meant Nolan went and Kewell came in – things did not improve. His opening match finished in a 5-1 away loss to Exeter, where they looked simply shell-shocked and Kewell was eventually sent to the stands for misconduct. Whilst his next game finished as a 3-3 draw with Stevenage to plug the losses, they led three times in that match and did not look confident enough to see off the game. Despite its obvious quality, their team looked all over the place and Kewell will have worked hard over the international break to solve this.

With such high scores in Kewell’s opening matches, we think this game could easily produce Over 2.5 Goals in a game that both sides will be fighting hard to win so they can start moving up the table. However, picking a correct-score, we are leaning towards Notts County winning 2-1. They seem to be more potent going forward at the moment and the perception is that Kewell will have worked hard to balance the team over the break to make them less open.