06-03-23. Match preview Vs Chester FC

Preview: Phil Lench

The tough games keep coming for the Harriers and that is in itself a sad indictment of where we are now. In reality it should be the opponent that are facing the tough game when they play us, not the other way round. In a few weeks time we’ll be playing Farsley Celtic and AFC Telford Utd and those two games are now beginning to be seen as tough games for us. 

Tomorrow we’ll face Chester FC at the Deva and if we come back with a positive result I, for one, will be extremely surprised. As it stands at the moment we’ll be lucky to see a goal let alone a point having not scored in our last four games.

On Saturday we were told by Russ Penn to expect big changes in the way we play but, to be honest, we could see very little difference and ended up with the same result that we’ve been getting all season at Aggborough: a 0-0 draw against Boston Utd. Maybe Russ should have said to expect slightly imperceptible changes.

We should have Nathaniel Knight-Percival back into the starting eleven after he missed that game through suspension while Christian Dibble could return from injury although Tom Palmer hasn’t played too badly in recent games. Krystian Pearce went off injured early on but it wasn’t clear what was wrong although he didn’t seem too pleased about it as he went straight down the tunnel and kicked the doors on his way.

Chester continued their rise up the table by consolidating their third place spot with a 4-2 victory against Banbury Utd at the Deva. They’ve lost just the once in their last ten games and have only lost five games all season. Compare that to our fourteen games lost then you can see why we’re so unlikely to go up let alone get into the play-offs.

They had a serious injury to Liam Edwards on Saturday when he was taken to hospital with a head injury. He’s said to be ok now and it wasn’t as serious as first thought but still remains in hospital as a precaution and is almost certain to miss our game. George Glendon is out all season with an ACL injury picked up during the pre-season fixture at Whitchurch Alport.

Their leading score, Kurt Willoughby with eighteen goals will lead the line for them again while our leading scorer with eight goals, Amari Morgan-Smith, will lead our line all by himself yet again no doubt.

No, I’m not hopeful. 

Teams:

Harriers from:

Palmer, Dibble, Penny, Richards, Morrison, Knight-Percival, Foulkes, Leak, McNally, Pearce, Byrne, Z Brown, Lissimore, Owen-Evans, Kobe Hall, Martin, McGlynn, Freemantle, Bearne, Hemmings, Morgan-Smith.

Chester FC from:

Tyrer, Morgan, A Brown, Burke, Roberts, Williams, Coates, Heywood, Weeks, Kenyon, Stephenson, Earl, Lynch, Hughes, Caton, Willoughby, Dudley, Thomas, Murray, Nmai, Kole Hall.

Referee: Mr Richard Holmes. Preston

Talk about the game here

Links to Chester FC websites here

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