Despite home advantage and Bloomfield's hope of progress from the training field, it is hard to get away from the obvious attacking deficiencies that Colchester have shown this season.
The U's will find it very hard to break down a Salford back line full of their manager's confidence to withstand a disjointed and injury-stricken lineup. They will likely be punished by the skill of Callum Hendry and Odin Bailey, both of whom are more-than-capable attackers to unpick Colchester at the weekend.
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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 36.95%. A win for Colchester United had a probability of 35.93% and a draw had a probability of 27.1%.
The most likely scoreline for a Salford City win was 0-1 with a probability of 10.46%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-2 (8.05%) and 0-2 (6.55%). The likeliest Colchester United win was 1-0 (10.28%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.87%). The actual scoreline of 1-1 was predicted with a 12.9% likelihood.
0.02) 
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