Division Two: Northampton Town v Burnley - Pete Oliver's big match preview

DAMIAN Matthew will wake up tomorrow morning with an acute feeling of deja vu.

For the second season running his team needs to win on the last day of the season and hope for favours elsewhere to avoid relegation into the Football League's basement division.

Last year Matthew helped Burnley complete a dramatic escape by beating Plymouth and hearing that Brentford had lost.

Tomorrow it's Northampton that Matthew needs to help stay up, something they can only achieve by beating his former club and hoping that both Oldham and Wycombe lose.

And this year's outcome will be even more gut-wrenching for Matthew, who is powerless to influence the result thanks to the second of two injuries that have ruined his season following a move from Burnley to Northampton last summer .

"It's worse than last year because I haven't been involved," he said.

"At least last year I was in charge of my own destiny.

"From Christmas on we did ever so well and to be fair Burnley have picked up since Christmas again."

The Clarets have improved since Northampton won at Turf Moor in December, although it's taken a 10-match unbeaten run from March 20 to get Stan Ternent's side safe after an alarming six-match slump prior to then. And while the Cobblers have also hit a run of form, their Second Division status remains very much in the balance.

"It's been crazy really because in the last eight games we have done really well," added a rueful Matthew, who could never have envisaged such a catalogue of ill-fortune after leaving Crystal Palace in the summer of 1996.

"I went from the First Division to Burnley to play some games, hoping that Burnley would get promoted or I would progress myself, but it wasn't to be.

"I then thought I was coming to a team on the brink of going on to big things.

"But these things happen in football. It's been a season of turmoil with all the operations we've had (15 Town players have had surgery) but you've just got to get on with it. I would be very disappointed if we went down. But I have got another year of my contract to run and I would honour that."

It's just as well that Matthew, whose strong finish to last season was a factor in the Clarets survival, is a cheerful character able to take a philosophical view of things. After joining Northampton under the Bosman ruling, the 28-year-old played just a handful of games before being diagnosed with a back injury which required surgery.

Further bad luck was to follow. "I got back and I was feeling fine, playing in the reserves and not doing that badly," added the former Chelsea player, who will cover tomorrow's big game as a radio pundit.

"But then I felt something niggling away and I had it checked with a scan which showed I had damaged a tendon in the hip joint.

"I have got to have it tidied up but it's just my luck that the surgeon has been away in China.

"But I am going to see him today and hopefully I will have it done after the Burnley game."

By then Matthew will know if his return to action will come in the Second or Third Division. And he is desperately hoping that lightning will strike twice.

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