Barnet vs Oldham Prediction and Betting Tips: Two bets for Wednesday's televised National League game

Televised National League action takes ownership of Wednesday evening as 2nd place Barnet host mid-table Oldham in front of the TNT Sports cameras at 8pm.

After two straight defeats, one of those coming against league leaders Chesterfield, Barnet find themselves five points off 1st having played a game more than The Spireites. This season marks Barnet's sixth outside of the Football League, and considering their swift exit from last season's playoffs in a quarter-final tie with Boreham Wood, Dean Brennan and co will be hoping to stay on course and secure a stronger position for those knockout matches, if not obtaining top spot over Chesterfield.

Micky Mellon earned his second win as Oldham boss, overcoming Woking in a close 1-0 contest last weekend. An unexpected 3-0 defeat to Fylde remains Latics' sole league defeat in five under Mellon's stewardship, and this clash with Barnet could provide the perfect litmus test for where Oldham currently are and potentially how big they should dream during this current campaign.

Stability is the key in this matchup and we believe Barnet will simply have too much for an Oldham side who are still finding their feet under new management. Seven of The Bees' 13 wins this season have come at Hive London, where they've dropped points on just three occasions and incurred their first loss to 5th place Gateshead last weekend. Only three of Barnet's 20 National League matches have finished with one or fewer goals, with the North London outfit the division's second top scorers on 40 goals after 20 fixtures.

Oldham have been slightly more effective away than they have been at home, producing both of their victories on the road in a hard fought 4-3 derby win over Rochdale and last Saturday vs a poor Woking team who've lost three games on the spin. That 1-0 win was the first time an Oldham game has finished with under two goals since Mickey Mellon took charge, seeing 19 scored at either end across the six games he's been in control of. With an implied probability of 45%, we're taking the 6/5 for a bet that's had a success rate of 70% in Barnet's home matches this term.

James Norwood has been one undoubted success for Oldham this season despite their early difficulties, scoring eight goals in 19 National League appearances since the coup that the club pulled off in enticing a player who made 42 appearances in League One and featured in the play-off final just last season to join a non-league side.

Four of those strikes have come in his last six outings, with three being scored under Micky Mellon - a manager he's very familiar with and who is expected to get a real tune out of him. The now 33-year-old spent four seasons under Mellon at Tranmere, experiencing two back-to-back promotions from the National League to League One and certainly playing his part in those achievements. The striker finished as League Two top scorer during the 2018/19 campaign with 29 goals, and also contributed 20 the last time he plied his trade in this division.

Although we anticipate Barnet overcoming Latics on Wednesday evening, the home side aren't indestructible. Their tally of 28 goals conceded is higher than all six of the teams around them and is more than nine teams in the league. Having let in six in just their last two matches alone, Oldham can give them a decent challenge and Norwood is one player we fancy to get on the scoresheet should the visitors impose themselves well enough on Barnet.