MATCH PREVIEW: Three opponents to overcome

Billy Barr’s team will have three opponents to overcome on Saturday – the weather, the pitch and mid-table Ilkeston Town.

The Premier Division fixture at Borough Park (3pm) is, perhaps, more important to us than the Derbyshire Reds but, if anything, that puts a little extra pressure on the hosts who have forgotten how good that winning feeling is.

Remarkably, both teams have lost fourteen league games this season yet the Derbyshire Reds are fifteen points better off than us. The difference is the wins and draws columns, with Ilkeston winning ten of their games and drawing four and Workington registering three wins and ten draws.

They sit comfortably in 13th position and have four away wins under their belt already – Morpeth Town (2-1), Leek Town (2-1), Guiseley (4-1) and Stockton Town (4-0).

Back in September, they inflicted a 3-2 defeat upon us at the New Manor ground and will be keen to complete a first ever league double at our expense. They have won at Borough Park in the past but not in a league fixture.

Their first visit (2004-05) saw them win a League Cup tie here and, in 2015, they emerged winners in the promotion play-off semi after we had beaten them home and away during the regular season.

The head-to-head now reads played fifteen with Reds winning nine of those games and Ilkeston (in their various guises) successful on five occasions.

Billy Barr will revert to his depleted first team squad having rested several players for the midweek Cumberland Cup tie.

Form guide

Workington: DDLLLDDDLD

Ilkeston Town: LLDWDWLWDL