National League: Dragons to roar on Thursday night

NON-LEAGUE expert Paul Maddison (@LouthBigDog) shares his favourite fancy from Thursday night’s National League play-off contest.

Wrexham v Eastleigh | Thursday 2nd May 2019, 19:00 | BT Sport

Wrexham finished the season strongly with four wins in their last five matches to clinch fourth place and give them home advantage in this tie. That could prove to be a massive plus for the Dragons, who have been excellent as hosts all season and will be backed be a big crowd at the Racecourse Ground.

The Welsh side have picked up an impressive 54 points here in 2018/19, by far the best return by any club in the National League. A big reason for this has been their excellent defence who have only conceded 13 times in 23 encounters at the Racecourse Ground.

Bryan Hughes’s hosts have won 11 of their last 14 fixtures at home – eight of those victories arrived alongside clean sheets.

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Eastleigh’s form coming into the play-offs must be a concern; the visitors have won just twice in their last nine outings and actually finished the season with a negative goal difference. The Spitfires have conceded a lot of goals on the road too – only four teams have conceded more and three of those clubs were relegated.

Eastleigh manager, Ben Strevens, was quoted in the local press before the last game of the season, saying he would rather face Fylde in the play-offs than Wrexham due to the crowd at the Racecourse Ground being a big advantage for the home side. Part of the reason may also be that his side have already lost twice this season to Thursday’s opponents.

I’m siding with Wrexham to continue their excellent home form, and they can be backed at 23/25 with Marathon. I’ve also had a small play on the Correct Score market, backing Wrexham to win 1-0 at 6/1 with BetVictor. The score line has been a bit of a speciality for the Dragons this season, landing in nine of their last 21 encounters here.