With a third of the season remaining and the 5th May finishing line in sight, each side in League Two will face differing strengths of opponents in the run-in.

The difficulty of fixtures remaining will play a key role in deciding where the title goes, which team mounts the inevitable late surge into the Play-Offs or who drops into non-league obscurity. So with that in-mind I’ve dusted off the spreadsheet again to quantify the difficulty of games for each side; ranked according to the average league position of their opponents on a home, away and combined basis.

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Home matches

At the County Ground, Swindon are to face opponents with an average away position of 12th. However, its not as simple as purely facing mid-ranking away sides, as Town are set to face both the good and the ugly of League Two. Visits by Crawley, Cheltenham and Torquay – who are three of the top five away sides in the division – will present the toughest test here since Oxford arrived in August. At the other end of the scale we welcome Plymouth, Dagenham and Northampton – who are three of the five worst away sides, desperate for points in their battle for survival.

Of the division’s promotion chasing pack, all except Crawley and Gillingham have been dealt the kindest card by the fixture gods. However, it must be noted that the Red Devils only have to face Torquay United of the current top ten at Broadfield. Yet the away sides they’ll welcome will be some of the better travellers in the division, giving Crawley the most difficult remaining fixtures at home.

Of the relegation threatened sides, Northampton – who have the worst points per game record as hosts – have the ‘easiest’ fixtures at Sixfields, which will see them play sides with an average away position of 15.6. Also, fellow relegation threatened Plymouth Argyle, Dagenham and Macclesfield have some of the more favourable fixtures. While they may be relatively favourable opponents in terms of the division as a whole, all four sides will face a lot of ‘six pointers’ in the weeks ahead.

In contrast, Hereford are to play the second toughest opponents as hosts, Bradford City the fourth toughest and Barnet the sixth. With the Bantams and Bees previously picking up the vast majority of their points at home – and their home form likely to take a nosedive – both will need to find some form away to secure their safety.

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Away matches

Swindon will travel to teams with an average position of 15.5, the lowest difficulty of opponents in the division. Importantly we’ve already faced trips to the likes of Cheltenham, Shrewsbury, Crawley, Southend, Accrington and Torquay, so with those tough hosts now behind us, trips to Gillingham and Oxford are the only two which could be the potential banana skins.

Crawley are to face a very tough standard of opponent on their travels with an average position of 9.4. Their trips to Swindon, Shrewsbury, Gillingham and Accrington will present the greatest threat to their promotion hopes.

Of the promotion chasing sides, Shrewsbury and Gillingham have the worst points won per game records on their travels. With the majority of tough hosts already faced, both have relatively favourable away trips until May to take advantage to improve their form.

Dagenham have been awful on their travels this season. Their problems looking forward are the trips to Morecambe, Oxford, Swindon, Gillingham and Shrewsbury, meaning they’ll face five of the best hosts in their remaining ten away games – providing a difficulty of 9.9. To stand any hope of avoiding the drop the Daggers will need to step up their home performances to take advantage of a relatively favourable home run-in including many six pointers.

Bradford and Plymouth have both struggled away, securing 0.6 points per game. Bradford (to play an average position of 14.2) are scheduled to face Barnet, Dagenham, Aldershot, Plymouth and Northampton. While Plymouth (difficulty 15.4) face Macclesfield, Northampton and Hereford away. Plenty of six-pointers for either side, but the Bantams have much the tougher task.

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Overall

The combined fixture difficulty table shows Crawley are scheduled to face the most difficult fixtures, playing opponents averaging 9th place in League Two. At the other end of the spectrum, Plymouth Argyle have been dealt a favourable run with their opponents averaging 15th.

With two of the four toughest opponents to face, Crawley and Torquay could well be the teams to fall out of the automatic promotion race. Both sides have picked up a good 1.6 points per game on their travels to date, however with tough trips to the County Ground and Priestfield (for both), Whaddon Rd for Torquay, and the New Meadow and Roots Hall for Crawley, these two  are looking the likely candidates to drop points given the difficulty of the fixtures.

Swindon have the most favourable opponents of any of the current top ten promotion chasers, but will this translate into the points needed to fire us to the League Two title? Playing relatively low ranked sides – particularly those fighting relegation – has previously been when we’ve struggled in the past. However, as results to date have suggested, this trend fortunately hasn’t continued under Paolo Di Canio.

Of all the teams outside, but hoping to secure of play-off berth, Port Vale and AFC Wimbledon appear to be the two best placed candidates to mount a surge up the division. Both sides are set to play the weakest travellers at home which could see them surge back to lofty positions once held back in September.

A recent surprise package has been Accrington’s rise to 8th. Whether they’ll be able to keep up this form having to face sides with an average position of 11th – including games against all sides currently above them in the table – is another matter… I suspect 8th will be a season high for Stanley.

Turning to the basement. With Plymouth Argyle set to face only three sides in the current top ten they could well complete a remarkable turnaround. Although with many ‘six-pointers’ against all the bottom nine remaining the table really doesn’t reflect the true difficulty of these important fixtures.

Macclesfield have recently dropped down the table. Their remaining fixtures against sides averaging 14th may give them enough chance to arrest the slide out of the Football League.

Are the gods on Northampton’s side? They’ve been awful all season and seem destined to be relegated, yet with the third most favourable run of fixtures remaining –  facing sides with average position of 13.7 – they have a ‘kind’ draw full of ‘six-pointers’ to preserve their League status.

As for Hereford…the Bulls are my clear favourites to join Northampton in the Conference. While the Bees may just be dragged back into the drop zone after a good recent run of four wins on the bounce.

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How it works

The tables rank teams on the basis of their home and away league form to date, using points won per game to determine league position.

For each remaining match a difficulty ranking is given –  i.e. Shrewsbury are the best home side so they have a ranking of 1 – where the sum of all opponents to face are then divided by the number of games to play; to give an average league position of the opposition.

This system gives an indication of the average league position for each team’s opponents on a home, away and combined basis; where the lower the score equates to a stronger average opponent over the remaining course of games.