Fleetwood striker Paddy Madden confident but ready for a battle against Wycombe

Town and opponents Wycombe Wanderers, who meet in the first leg at Highbury on Friday, were in contrasting form before the season halted in March.

Town were unbeaten in 12 games and their assault on the top two positions was in full flow, whereas Wycombe had won five out of 14 games from December 21.

The Chairboys were the biggest beneficiaries of the points-per-game method used to finalise the table, jumping five places to third and so bumping Town down to sixth.

Wycombe might have had a hot start and a cooler finish before play was suspended but Madden is taking nothing for granted.

He told The Gazette: “That’s just League One in general – some teams start off on fire and most teams then just die off. Sometimes you get some that can see it out all the way to the end.

“I think Wycombe were on a bad run before the break but they’ve been up at the top for the majority of the season, so they were probably just going through their bad spell. This virus outbreak probably came at the right time for them.

“But that will all be out of the window. Whoever prepares the best and is in the best shape, doing their stuff on the day, will progress.

“I’m confident that will be us. We’re training well and there’s no reason we can’t get to the final.

“They’re quite a direct team, with the big man (Adebayo Akinfenwa) up front, but we’ve done quite well against them over the years.

“Any team that gets to the play-offs is obviously a good side. It’s no fluke over the course of a season.

“We’re going to expect a real battle and it’s up to us to come out on top.”

Wycombe were unable to get the better of Joey Barton’s players in their two games during the regular season.

Madden scored in both matches as a 1-1 draw at Highbury was followed by a 1-0 win for Town in the return fixture, when Ched Evans was red-carded.

The Irishman added: “There were a lot of positives. In the first game we were one down and got back to 1-1. I don’t think people realised Conor McAleny went over on his ankle. It went up like a balloon and we’d used all of our subs.

“Away, we scored with 10 men. That shows a lot of character to keep going until the end – you don’t know what will pop up.”