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.

Tomorrow’s match will be a step into the unknown for Wrexham, as we’ve never played Solihull Moors or either of their predecessors. The  club was formed when Moor Green and Solihull Borough merged in 2007, but neither club fell within our orbit.

However, we’ve reached the second round of the FA Trophy twice before, and like tomorrow’s game, we found ourselves up against opposition from a lower division.

In 2011 we went to Salisbury with a second string side and lost 1-0 to a second half penalty conceded by debutant Lee Fowler, while in 2009 we won 2-1 at Basingstoke thanks to a Jeff Louis strike and an own goal.

Wrexham come into the game in good goal scoring form, of course, having hit at least five in three of their last four matches, and scored eleven goals in their last two home games.

The last time we scored five or more in two consecutive matches at The Racecourse was also the last time we got six there. In May 2003 we beat Newport County 6-1 in the Welsh Premier Cup Final, having won our previous home game 5-0 against Cambridge. As the home match before that was a 6-1 victory over Carlisle, that also represents the last time we’ve scored at least  five in three home games in a row.

Coincidentally, Andy Morrell, who got four in our last two home games, also hit four in those three matches, including a hat trick against Carlisle!

If you’re an optimist, here’s something to chew over: we’ve scored five or more in four consecutive home matches twice, in 1911 and 1933.

Neil Ashton’s two goals last Saturday mean he has doubled the number of goals he has scored in his career this season. Five of the ten goals he’s managed since his debut for Tranmere Rovers in the 2003-4 season have come in this campaign.

That might be something of a surprise for such a forward-thinking full back; to me it was a shock that it took him so long to hit the net for Wrexham, as he didn’t manage the feat until the final league game of his second season with the club.

That’s all behind him now though, as this season is now comfortably his most prolific already. He’s hit the net five times (it ought to be six, of course, but he missed a penalty at Tamworth!) and his previous best was the two he managed for Shrewsbury in 2006-7.

He’s always been a regular contributor of assists, and has stepped things up a level this season. He’s either scored or set up a goal a shade under every two and a half games: apart from our strikers, the only person to better that figure is midfield play-maker Dean Keates.

Keates, meanwhile, will make his hundredth appearance for Wrexham tomorrow, during which he has contributed ten goals and twenty assists. Impressively, the skipper has already set up more goals this season than in any previous campaign for us.