Here’s my column from last week’s Leader. It forms part of the paper’s comprehensive pre-match coverage every Friday, featuring interviews, an in-depth look at the opposition and lots of statistical analysis. All content in the column (c) www.leaderlive.co.uk.

Luton might be coming to town tonight, but the focus is firmly on Wrexham. After three seasons of uninterrupted success, our recent run of poor results has not only felt rather unfamiliar, but has established a few negative patterns the likes of which we haven’t seen for a while.

This is only the second time since Andy Morrell took over as manager that we’ve failed to score in consecutive matches, the only other instance coming against Hyde and Macclesfield straight after last season’s FA Trophy final, and the first time we’ve failed to score in more than two back-to-back matches under him.

Should Luton shut us out tonight it’ll take our dry run to four hundred and twenty three minutes, our longest run without a goal since we went five hundred and forty five minutes without hitting the net in April 2009, when a Michael Proctor goal on the last day of the season against Weymouth ended a run of five games without scoring.

That sequence of games also included another landmark we’ll be desperate to avoid equalling tonight: the last time we lost four games in a row, against Oxford, Altrincham, Kettering and Ebbsfleet.

Also, we’ve now gone thirteen games without a clean sheet, which is our longest run since an identical sequence which started at the end of 2004 with a televised FA Cup defeat at Scunthorpe on the fateful night we went into administration and included a brief appearance in goal by midfielder Scott Green when Andy Dibble was injured at Sheffield Wednesday!

The last time we’ve gone longer without a clean sheet was a run of sixteen games which spanned two seasons in 2004.

Our league record against Luton has been impressive recently; it’s when we meet them in the play-offs that things fall apart. In the Conference we’re unbeaten against The Hatters in six matches. We haven’t lost a home league match to them since 2005, when they clinched promotion to The Championship with a 2-1 win despite Andy Holt giving us a first half lead.

Last season’s match was the first clash between the sides in the Conference at The Racecourse which we didn’t win. The goalless draw was the first time the sides drew a blank in North Wales since 1983, although we’ve had three 0-0s at Kenilworth Road since then.

One of those was in September last season, meaning it’s been a while since there was a goal in this fixture. The last scorer in the fixture was Andy Morrell as we unsuccessfully tried to claw back a 2-0 deficit in the 2012 play-off semi-finals, and Dean Keates got the last league goal with a brilliant chip in March 2012.

Our biggest win over Luton came in September 2009. Before the game the 75th anniversary of the Gresford mining disaster was commemorated, and Wrexham got off to a quick start. We were two up after twenty five minutes, Gareth Taylor scoring them both, and Mark Jones secured a 3-0 win. If only Taylor had been so successful from the penalty spot in the play-offs the following season!