Next Up: Wycombe Wanderers vs Exeter City

City’s Christmas period was ultimately successful, garnering seven points from a possible nine, although Gary Caldwell will be hoping 2025 kicks off not with a repeat of City’s shambolic first half against Crawley but rather the euphoric second half which saw City come back from 1-4 down to draw 4-4. Caldwell admitted he got his selection and shape wrong in the first half of that match, which saw Jay Bird withdrawn after less than half an hour and three further changes made at half time. Tristan Crama returned from the injury that saw him withdrawn at Burton, while Johnly Yfeko and Jack Aitchison are back in training and hoping for involvement, unlike Reece Cole who is expected to miss several weeks with a calf issue. Pat Jones made his first league appearance off the bench and made a big impact, so is expecting to be on the bench again as he steps up his comeback from injury.

Since City ended their 11-match winning run last month, Wycombe’s form has been a little more patchy with two wins (both away from Adams Park) and defeats in the EFL Trophy and, on Sunday, their first league defeat since mid-August. That defeat at Charlton meant the Chairboys finished 2024 in third place behind megabucks Birmingham and Wrexham, but well placed for a serious tilt at automatic promotion. What is becoming increasingly apparent is the reliance on Richard Kone up front, the former refugee striker has 12 league goals (15 in all competitions) in a career that might have been picked from the pages of Roy of the Rovers, and his form has apparently been noticed by clubs higher up the pyramid. The two former City players in Alex Hartridge and David Wheeler are unlikely to feature – Hartridge has been warming the bench with Wheeler nowhere to be seen, although both are first choiced in the cup competitions.

The fixture computer often has a quirk in the system that throws up pairs of fixtures very close to each other, and this is the case with this fixture, marking the first return match but which was also one of the last to be played initially back at the start of December. That match will be fresh in the minds as City raced into a 2-0 lead through Alli and McMillan’s first goal for the club, but were pegged back to 2-2 through Low and Humphreys. City will be hoping for a repeat of the first day of last season where goals from Aitchison (on debut), Aimson and Scott sealed a comfortable 3-0 win. City have the slight edge in league head to heads with eight wins to Wycombe’s seven, December’s draw the eighth between the sides.

The match officials for this game will be:-

Referee: Scott Simpson
Assistant Referees: Marc Wilson and Dan Bonneywell
Fourth Official : Abigail Byrne

Scott Simpson took charge of the away game at Wigan in September which finished 0-0. His only other City game was in January with Cambridge Utd which also finished 0-0.

Interview with Dan Green

Interview with Millenic Alli