On Saturday, Celtic travel across Cheshire to face Nantwich Town. Nantwich are currently third in the league on twenty-eight points four points and two places above Celtic despite having played two games fewer. Kick-off is 3pm.

After a rocky start to the season, losing three of their opening five, Nantwich have found their consistency and have now won seven of their last ten, drawing one. Since their opening two home matches saw them loose 2-0 to Hednesford and 2-1 to Wythenshawe, Nantwich won four of their other five, drawing with Widnes, lifting them up to third, where they have been for a few weeks now. Their 6-0 home win over Trafford a couple of week ago is the current best home result in the league this season.

Thanks to that 6-0 win, in their last three home matches, they have scored ten goals with only one concession. A hattrick in that Trafford game lifted Kai Evans to the top of the Nantwich Golden Boot table, with five goals, though with three goals in their last four matches, Kelvin Mellor is catching rapidly on four for the season so far. On average, Nantwich score 2.3 goals per game at homer and 1.8 overall, failing to score once at home; they concede an average of 1.3 goals per game both at home and overall, keeping two of their three clean sheets at home. With nearly a third of their goals scored in the twenty minute to half-hour mark, this is their most dangerous period, but with nearly half of the goals conceded coming in the seventy to eighty minute mark, this is their most vulnerable point of the match.

Over the last forty years, we’ve played Nantwich twenty-two times. One friendly (we won), three times in the FA Trophy (we won all those, too) and six times in the Cheshire Senior Cup (Nantwich won five of those). In the last ten league matches, Nantwich have won seven, Celtic two and there was a draw back in 2018, the only draw between the clubs. We’ve visited Nantwich twelve times over this period. Last season, we lost 4-2, almost making a miraculous comeback, but starting too late. Our last win was in 2023 when we won 4-0, with DJ Pedro, Chris Dagnall, Theo Bailey-Jones and Kyle Harrison all on the score sheet.

In Nantwich’s last match, the 2-0 home win over Liverpool, Nantwich lined up as:
1. Ben Garratt
2. Kelvin Mellor
3. Perry Bircumshaw
4. Troy Bourne
5. Courtney Meppen-Walters
6. Patrick Kennedy
7. Ali Hayder
8. Tom Pratt
9. Byron Harrison
10. Nathan Sandison
11. Kai Evans

In Celtic’s last match, the 3-1 away win over Macclesfield, Celtic lined up as:
1. Jack McClenaghan
2. Luke Partington
3. Javid Swaby-Neavin
4. Kyle Brownhill
5. Jack Tinning
6. Jordan Burton
7. Brandon Newell
8. Liam Tongue
9. Joe Duckworth
10. Navid Nasseri
11. Isaac Modi

The performance against Macclesfield should provide a great confidence boost going into the Nantwich match, but with several players still on the physio table, Jon Macken still has to pick his squad carefully.