Leyton Orient vs Gateshead: FA Trophy 4th round preview
Gateshead take on Leyton Orient this weekend in the quarter-final of the FA Trophy at The Matchroom Stadium.
The Heed will be confident following their draw at Barrow during the week, despite being down to 10 men for the majority of the second half.
Their persistence paid off when Jordan Preston scored a late equaliser, meaning a point would be heading back to Tyneside.
Orient will be buoyed as they are on a five game unbeaten run, and they have only lost twice in 14 games.
Those defeats came against Aldershot Town and Bromley who are both in the top eight as it stands.
The O’s and Gateshead are separated by just two points in the bottom half of the Conference so Saturday’s game should be a close affair.
The last time the two sides met was back in October, and it was manager Steve Watson’s first three points whilst in charge.
Gateshead’s win was described as the ‘perfect’ away performance as they scored two goals and kept the ball out of their own during a 2-0 victory.
Heed manager Steve Watson will have a full selection of players at his disposal on Saturday, excluding Ben Fox (Hamstring) who is cup-tied anyway.
Gateshead are potentially two wins from Wembley and manager Steve Watson wants his side to be in the hat for the next round:
“We want to be in the next round whether that means doing it on Saturday or whether that means taking them back to our place on Tuesday.
“Either way we want to be in the hat and the lads can take a lot of positives from the second half against Barrow.”
My prediction for the game is that it will be a 1-1 draw and another 90 minutes or more will be needed to separate the two teams.
Credit to Gateshead for the quotes used in this article and also thanks to Rob Chambers and Gateshead FC for the imagery used in this article.