Salford City square off against Dagenham & Redbridge in the FA Cup first round on Monday night looking for improvements after a poor start in League Two.
Meanwhile, high-scoring Dagenham have recently dropped down to ninth position in the National League after failing to build on an excellent opening to the fifth tier.
Match preview
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Having narrowly missed out on the playoffs last season, everyone associated with Salford were expecting to make a sustained push for promotion this time around.
However, the North-West outfit have struggled this campaign, winning only four of their 15 league matches to sit just four points above the relegation zone.
On a positive note, there are only seven points separating Salford and the playoffs, but that will not be a realistic aim until Gary Bowyer's men can record successive wins for the first time this season.
Their most recent two fixtures have ended in defeat, Salford taking an early lead before losing at leaders Forest Green Rovers and Exeter City netting a last-gasp winner to win 2-1 last weekend.
Three clean sheets have been kept in six league outings, although that currently matters little with none of this squad scoring more than three league goals.
There was a time earlier this season when Dagenham were outclassing the opposition with six wins being recorded from their opening eight fifth-tier contests.
However, four defeats have been posted from their last seven in all competitions, while they let slip a two-goal lead at home to Chesterfield last time out.
Even though the Daggers remain just two points outside of the top seven, Daryl McMahon cannot be happy with their current trajectory heading into an encounter of this magnitude.
Nevertheless, Salford will have more concerns about their hosts than vice-versa, and that could create the ideal scenario for Dagenham to cause one of the upsets of the round.
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Team News
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Dagenham will remain without striker Paul McCallum, who has been handed a further two-match ban for improper conduct.
Kenny Clark is on standby to deputise for Elliot Johnson, who he replaced at half time last week, but Scott Wilson should continue in the final third with Ibby Akanbi already cup-tied.
Despite having made changes for the EFL Trophy tie against Leeds United Under-23s, Bowyer could revert back to the team which played Exeter last week.
Tom Elliott should take the place of Aramide Oteh, who got on the scoresheet during the 5-3 thriller against the Lilywhites.
Donald Love was given a rare 90 minutes during that fixture and will hope for another opportunity on Monday.
Dagenham & Redbridge possible starting lineup:
Justham; Wright, Johnson, Reynolds, Weston; Saunders, Rance, Sagaf, Vilhete; Balanta, Wilson
Salford City possible starting lineup:
Ripley; Shephard, Eastham, Turnbull, Touray; Lowe, Lund; Thomas-Asante, Willock, Morris; Elliott
We say: Dagenham & Redbridge 1-2 Salford City
With neither team performing to their best of late, we expect a competitive tie on Monday night. While we expect the home side to get on the scoresheet at some stage, Salford should have too much quality and are likely to earn a place in round two.
Darren Plant
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 Salford City win with a probability of 64.24%. A draw had a probability of 19.3% and a win for Dagenham & Redbridge had a probability of 16.45%.
The most likely scoreline for a Salford City win was 1-2 with a probability of 9.84%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-2 (9.52%) and 0-1 (8.58%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (8.86%), while for a Dagenham & Redbridge win it was 2-1 (4.58%). The actual scoreline of 0-1 was predicted with an 8.6% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Salford City would win this match.
