Two sides at opposite ends of League Two meet in the third round of the EFL Trophy as high-flying Sutton United welcome Colchester United to the VBS Community Stadium on Tuesday evening.
The visitors are clinging onto a spot outside the relegation zone, whilst the hosts are sitting pretty up in third but did require penalties to progress in the last round of this competition.
Match preview
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Sutton made hard work of seeing off a Stevenage side which they had beaten in the league in round two of the EFL Trophy.
After being held to a goalless draw on home turf, it took sudden death penalties to separate the sides, with the favourites fortunate to survive when Luther James-Wildin missed a penalty which would have sent them out.
Matt Gray will be hoping for an easier evening on this occasion, and his side have showed enough promise recently in the league to suggest that could be the case.
Despite a gap of two weeks following their 1-0 win over Harrogate Town - as their fixtures with Bristol Rovers and upcoming opponents Colchester were two of many League Two matches to be postponed - The U's made it back-to-back wins.
A late Robert Milsom penalty proved to be the winner in a 2-1 victory over Exeter City which saw Sutton move into the top three in the league.
Colchester have not been finding life in League Two so pleasant and are currently on a run of four games without a win.
The most recent two of those were also defeats at the hands of midtable sides - a 3-0 loss away at Walsall was followed by a 3-1 defeat to Crawley Town, with Fred Sears's 79th-minute goal just a consolation.
Those results have seen The Oysters fall to 20th in the table, just two places and three points above Scunthorphe United in the relegation zone.
Hayden Mullins's side did, at least, produce a better showing in round two of the EFL Trophy, with a Luke Chambers brace inside the first 11 minutes enough to beat Swindon Town.
The former-West Ham man will hope that his team can repeat that performance and perhaps then find some momentum to make things a little more comfortable in the league heading into 2022.
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Team News
Whether Gray will choose to rotate the Sutton starting XI with two games in the space of 72 hours remains to be seen, but either way he is likely to remain loyal to his 4-4-2 system.
Alistair Smith kept his place in the side last time out, making it three consecutive starts in the U's midfield, behind the strike partnership of Donovan Wilson and Omar Bugiel.
Colchester will be assessing the fitness of a number of their players who have been missing due to COVID-19 as of late.
Shamal George, Frank Nouble and Gene Kennedy are all expected to return having missed the previous few games due to injury.
Sutton United possible starting lineup:
Bouzanis; Barden, Goodliffe, John, Wyatt; Randall, Milsom, Smith, Ajiboye; Bugiel, Wilson
Colchester United possible starting lineup:
Turner; Tchamadeu, Chambers, Smith, Daniels; Skuse, Sarpong-Wiredu; Jasper, Judge, Hannant; Sears
We say: Sutton United 3-1 Colchester United
The hosts are in far better form and have won all four of their matches in this competition so far. They may well prove that The Oysters were fortunate to have their recent match called off and we are backing a comfortable home victory.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Sutton United win with a probability of 42.2%. A win for Colchester United had a probability of 29.93% and a draw had a probability of 27.9%.
The most likely scoreline for a Sutton United win was 1-0 with a probability of 12.55%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.42%) and 2-0 (8.1%). The likeliest Colchester United win was 0-1 (10.11%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (13.05%). The actual scoreline of 2-1 was predicted with an 8.4% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Sutton United would win this match.
