AFC Telford preview: Bucks must sort out their defensive record

After starting 2025 with a woeful 4-0 defeat at promotion-rivals Stratford Town, Telford now travel to third-placed Bedford looking to right the wrongs and get back on track.

And after a 10-day break, Wilkin is expecting to see a positive reaction from his side against a Bedford team who will be a ‘tough nut to crack.’

“It’s a very closely-matched league and on their 3G, which they work on regularly, we’ll have to show a real edge to come through it,” the Bucks boss said. “Bedford will be a tough nut to crack. They’ve got a player that I’ve worked with previously that is technically very good and is fairly free scoring.”

He added: “There’s a lot of energy about them and we’ll be in for a tough game, and we’ll need to make a real step up from where we were against Stratford.

“It’s third vs sixth so there’s plenty on the game, and we need to show courage about our game that’ll allow us to take the fight to them. We’ve shown on plenty of occasions away from home that we can do just that.”

Similarly to Telford, Bedford come into tomorrow’s game off the back of a drubbing of their own – a 5-1 defeat against Spalding United.

However, after watching the game live from The New Eyrie, Wilkin is not taking the Eagles lightly despite the result.

“While it finished 5-1 to Spalding it was a whole lot closer than the scoreline suggests, and there were moments where Bedford will feel they should have levelled the game up,” Wilkin explained. “Had they taken those moments, like us at Stratford, it might’ve been a different outcome.

“We know ourselves that we’ve given away too many goals this season, and some really poor goals at that.”

He added: “That said at both Hitchin and Stratford we missed some gilt-edged chances to see the games home, and I’m not talking half-chances I’m talking one on one moments that we missed but our opponents, when they were in similar positions, went on to score.

“You can’t make life easy for the opposition, and our biggest takeaway point from the first half of the season is that we’ve shipped far too many goals.

“I’m a little bit more accepting of it if a team plays around us and scores what I would deem to be a well-worked goal, but I do believe we bring about a lot of our own issues through players not seeing danger quick enough.

“Too often we’ve made bad decisions in crucial moments, and it’s been costing us.”

Telford hope to be boosted by the returns of Matty Stenson and Byron Moore from injury this weekend, after the pair missed the Stratford game with knocks.

Elsewhere, Mansfield Town loanee Jakub Kruszynski is making progress in his recovery, but Saturday will likely come too soon for him.