The Omen

Just what you need when you’re struggling for points, a team fighting for their lives and in their first bit of form of the season turning up on your doorstep.

That’s what Mossley face with the arrival of Radcliffe Borough on Tuesday evening but the omens are good for this one. Don't believe me?

Last season we went through January with four straight defeats before facing the then bottom of the league side Leek Town in the final game of the month. It was an extremely close game but we managed to beat the Staffordshire side by two goals to one.

Flash forward twelve months and we've just suffered our fourth straight defeat of the new year and we're about to face the side at the foot of the table in the last game before February. If that's not an omen then I don't know what is. Apart from, maybe, the film 'The Omen', its numerous sequels of diminishing returns and one rather ill-advised remake.

Like Tuesday's upcoming match, Borough’s last visit to Seel Park back in March was also a game that neither side could afford to lose if they wanted to have a chance of avoiding relegation, although all Mossley's 1 – 0 win ultimately did was to delay the inevitable by a week.

That result was also repeated at the Inn2Gether Stadium Stainton Park last November in the initial meeting between the two sides this season; Lee Blackshaw scoring the goal in a game notable for little else of incident happening.

Prediction: As the portents are looking good (which is, worryingly, more than what can be said for the weather) – a win for the Lilywhites!