Preview: Chelmsford City vs Weston-super-Mare - prediction, team news, lineups

Chelmsford City and Weston-super-Mare meet on Saturday afternoon for the opportunity to earn a spot in the FA Cup third round.

Both teams play their football in the National League South, the home side sitting in 15th place and the visitors as high as third position.

Match preview

When the second-round draw was made last month, two all-non-league ties were produced with one of them being this tie.

Chelmsford City have a best FA Cup performance of the fourth round in 1938-39, while Weston-super-Mare have never reached the third round in their 138-year history.

Those statistics emphasis the magnitude of the game that will take place at the Dunmow Group Community Stadium this weekend as both teams dream of a glamour tie early next year.

These clubs are no strangers to each other having already met in 2025-26, playing out a goalless draw in the second game of the season at Weston-super-Mare.

In August, Chelmsford collected 11 points from six games to suggest that they could launch a promotion bid, but they currently find themselves down in 15th place with 27 points from 19 matches.

Meanwhile, Weston-super-Mare have accumulated 12 points more than their next opponents, impressively winning 12 of their 19 matches in the sixth tier of English football.

Four victories have come from their last six games in all competitions, while they are unbeaten in their last three away games.

Weston-super-Mare reached this stage of the competition with a 2-1 victory over Aldershot Town, albeit requiring extra time to overcome the National League side.

As for Chelmsford City, they ran out 4-1 winners over Braintree Town of the same division, but a four-game winning streak in all competitions has been followed by four consecutive defeats.

Chelmsford City FA Cup form:

W W W W

Chelmsford City form (all competitions):

W W L L L L

Weston-super-Mare FA Cup form:

D W W W W

Weston-super-Mare form (all competitions):

W W W L W D

Team News

Having pushed National League South leaders Torquay United last time out, Angelo Harrop may decide to stick with a similar Chelmsford City XI.

Former Nottingham Forest and Charlton Athletic forward Lyle Taylor is a notable name in attack, the veteran netting five times in 12 league outings this season. However, more notably, he has eight goals in this season's FA Cup.

Tom Lapslie, who made 170 appearances for Colchester United earlier in his career, may only be named on the substitutes' bench.

Weston-super-Mare's attack will be led by Louis Britton, who netted his 14th goal of the campaign in the most recent fixture against Horsham.

George Birch, Charlie Cummins, Scott Wilson and Callum Wood were all introduced to the starting lineup for the previous game and are fighting to keep their places.

Chelmsford City possible starting lineup:

Haigh; Ronan, Tompkins, Longe-King, Barbrook; Odusanya, Holmes; Folarin, Adigun, Uchegbulam; Taylor

Weston-super-Mare possible starting lineup:

Harris; Pope, Wood, Lewis, Bernard, Cummins, Dodd, Sercombe, Birch, Wilson, Britton

We say: Chelmsford City 1-2 Weston-super-Mare

Chelmsford City will hope that home advantage can prove pivotal here as they bid to earn a potential glamour tie in the third round. However, we cannot ignore the respective league positions, leaving us to predict a narrow away win.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.