It is an early-season cup tie at Plough Lane as AFC Wimbledon host Newport County in the EFL Cup first round. CheckLive has no clear favourite here, which tells you how evenly matched these two sides look. A place in the second round is at stake, but with both teams still finding their feet, this could easily go either way.
Wimbledon's pre-season form has been mixed: they lost to Queens Park Rangers and Wealdstone, but beat Charlton Athletic and Sutton United, with a goalless draw against Norwich City in between. Newport also had a varied run of friendlies, winning against Yeovil Town and Newport City, drawing with Bristol City, but losing heavily to Reading and narrowly to Gloucester City. Those results are only friendlies, so they carry limited weight, but they suggest neither side arrives in red-hot form.
The head-to-head record is strikingly even: six previous meetings, one win each and four draws. The most recent clash, in League Two last January, went Newport's way with a 2-1 victory at AFC Wimbledon. With no favourite in the eyes of CheckLive and a history of tight, drawn encounters, expect a closely fought contest where a draw after ninety minutes would be no surprise.
