Salford City won the first leg of this tie 2-1, after losing both regular season meetings with Grimsby Town – the last team to win both legs of an EFL play-off semi-final tie against a side who did the double over them in the regular season were Northampton Town vs Cheltenham in League Two in 2012-13 (Notts County could also do this in the other fixture).

Grimsby Town are unbeaten in each of their last five away games against Salford City (W3 D2), since a 1-0 loss in League Two in September 2019.

Salford City stayed unbeaten and won six of their final seven home games in the League Two regular season (D1), beating champions Bromley 2-0 in their most recent; meanwhile no team kept more clean sheets on home turf in the fourth tier than the Ammies (10).

Only MK Dons (45) scored more away goals in the 2025-26 League Two regular season than Grimsby Town (33), who also picked up the most away victories in 2026 in the fourth tier (P12 W7 D2 L3).

Salford City’s only previous home EFL play-off game came against Stockport County in 2022-23, winning 1-0 in the first leg but failing to reach the final after a penalty shootout loss in the 2nd leg – meanwhile manager Karl Robinson is winless in his last three play-off home matches (D1 L2).

Grimsby Town have never been eliminated from an EFL play-off campaign at the semi-final stage, reaching the third-tier final in 1998 and the fourth-tier final in 2006 – this is the first time they will have to come from behind to progress through the semi-finals, however.

Grimsby’s Reece Staunton scored the third-quickest goal in League Two this season in the first leg, netting after 24 seconds. He’s now been involved in five goals in his last six appearances (1 goal, 4 assists).

Salford’s Luke Garbutt has three assists in his last four League Two appearances and across the last three seasons he has more League Two assists than any other Ammies player (15).