Wycombe Wanderers vs Accrington Stanley: League One Match Preview
The EFL League One match coming up this Tuesday, 17 September 2019, between Accrington Stanley F.C. and Wycombe Wanderers F.C. will take place at Adams Park in High Wycombe, England. Accrington is coming off of a 3-1 loss to Sunderland A.F.C. this past Saturday. The defeat dropped them down to 20th in the table, and back to the brink of the elimination zone. Things don't get any easier for them on Tuesday, as they will be traveling to face a Wycombe club that has been the surprise of the league thus far. The Chairboys have been off to a red hot start, and were unbeaten before finally falling to Gillingham F.C. in their most recent match on Saturday. In fact, they were sitting at the very top of the table before Saturday, which was unexpected to say the least for a club that finished last season in 17th place, had a -12 goal differential, and lost 7 more times than they won. Looking at the numbers for this year, they have scored 13 goals and allowed 9 through 8 matches. To me, these numbers suggest that they are a club that should compete for a playoff spot, but will be short lived this high up in the table.
Wycombe is currently lead in scoring by their do-everything left back Joe Jacobsen, a veteran who started his career with Accy back in 2006. Jacobsen has found the back of the net 3 times in 8 matches this season, and is a proven scoring threat from that position, having scored 7 goals and added 5 assists last year. They also return their leading scored from last year, Adebayo Akinfenwa, who had 8 goals for them last season, has 1 goal and 2 assists so far this season. Accrington is led in scoring by Colby Bishop, with 3 goals, but Jordan Clark has been the hot hand of late, having scored in each of his last 2 matches. Bishop and Clark are among 5 players who have played every minute for The Reds so far this season. The others are Ross Sykes, Sam Finley, and goalkeeper Dimitar Evtimov.
Wycombe Wanderers vs Accrington Stanley Vital Information
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This match can be will be the first that can be viewed on Accrington Stanley iFollow or in the United States, and in the UK at 2:45 PM U.S. ET/7:45 PM GMT.
Referee appointments have Brett Huxtable as the referee, with assistants Paul Kelly and Alasdair Ross, and the fourth official Stuart Butler.
This will be the 23rd meeting all time between Accrington Stanley F.C. and Wycombe Wanders. In the previous 22 meetings, Accrington has won 9, Wycombe has won 5 times, and there has been 8 draws. The last time these two played in a League One match, it was a 3-1 Accrington win at Adams Park, back on 12 March 2019. Wycombe did beat Accrington at WHAM Stadium last September, but that was their only win out of the past 13 match-ups between these two clubs dating back to 2013. Of those 13 match-ups, 7 have ended in a draw.
Five Points That Shouldn’t Be Overlooked
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In many weeks we are writing about clubs that Accrington has played maybe a handful of times since achieving League One status. Wycombe is not one of those, as these two sides have met at least once in every calendar year since 2006, Accrington's first year in the Football League. The recent series as mentioned above has for the most part been dominated by Accrington, with Wycombe's victory last season being their only one in the series since 2013. There have been 5 Accrington victories and 7 draws over that period. It should be noted that these have been typically low scoring matches. In fact, in the first 19 match-ups neither team scored more than 2 goals in any of the games. Accrington has recently had a 4 and a 3 goal output against Wycombe, but The Chairboys have never put more than 2 past an Accrington keeper in a match.
A deeper look into Wycombe's hot start shows that perhaps the schedule they have played has something to do with it. For example, they opened the season with a 2-0 victory over Bolton Wanderers F.C., a team that was fielding mostly youth players at the time. Another of their victories came against Southend United F.C., who have been the worst side in the league by a large margin. Their most impressive win came against Lincoln City F.C., but even that came in a match where they were playing a famously short benched Imps side that was on only 3 days rest. Their other victory came against, MK Dons who are currently 10th in the table, but I have seen them play and in my opinion they are a bottom table club talent wise. There is something to be said for beating the teams on you schedule that you should beat, but I would say Gillingham, who Wycombe lost to on Saturday falls under the category of teams a playoff contender should beat.
Looking at the odds it seems that the professionals think that Wycombe is for real, and likely to beat Accrington today. Right now, you can get 3/1 odds on Accrington win, which is more than the 2.5/1 that you would have gotten paid for betting on an Accrington win over Sunderland on Saturday. You will also have to bet 5 to win 4 if you are betting on a Wycombe victory, which is marginally less than the 11 to bet 10 you could have gotten on Sunderland. A draw is going off at 13/5 which is means a bet of 10 quid would pay you back 36 (your original 10 plus winnings of 26). Considering how often these 2 clubs have drawn, that is a pretty good value. However, it appears that with this line that the bookmakers are almost encouraging you not to bet on Wycombe, and that isn't a good sign for Accy.
Accrington now has one of the largest back lines in League One in terms of height. They have already had the 6 foot 5 inch Sykes as a staple on defense, and last week we talked about the arrival of "The Big Unit", 6 foot 4 inch Jerome Opoku. Last week saw the debut of another big and physical back, in the form of West Ham United F.C. loanee Ajibola Alese. At 6 feet even, he is not as tall as the other two, but in just 28 minutes as a sub in his debut, was a guy that made his presence felt immediately. Alese is one of the strongest players I have seen in this division and appeared to be able to the outmuscle and overpower Sunderland's attacking midfielders after he took the pitch. Accrington has plenty of talent along the back line, but I would love to see what a back line of Alese and Sykes on the middle with Opoku at left back, and Callum Johnson at right back. This combination would give them an impressive mix of size, speed, strength, and a full slate of guys comfortable with moving the ball forward.
A big boost for Accrington will be the return of veteran midfielders Sean McConville and Seamus Conneely, who were both suspended for the Sunderland match. These two are by far manager John Coleman's most experience options, and I expect that we will see both back in the starting line-up today in a game that Coleman has publicly stated will be a tough battle. I expect that we should see standout newcomer Joe Pritchard, along with Clark joining them in the midfield against Wycombe. I expect Bishop will be one of the starters up front, and perhaps we will see Connor Simpson make his debut along side of him.
Wycombe Wanderers vs Accrington Stanley Prediction
This is a mid-week game, and both teams are on short rest, thus making it the kind of match where any result would not be surprising. Ultimately I think that Accrington is a little bit better than they have shown so far, while Wycombe has maybe punched above their weight a bit so far. Accrington has been playing a pretty wide open style that has lead to an increase in scoring for them, but unfortunately also for the opposition. I think we will see some goals this afternoon by both sides, but ultimately, Wycombe is at home, and has been the better side thus far this season. A draw wouldn't be surprising, as that tends to happen quite frequently when these sides meet up, but today I think it will be Wycombe edging out Accy by 1 goal.
Prediction: Wycombe Wanderers - 3 Accrington Stanley - 2
