| Venue: Aggborough Date: 06-04-24 Harriers 0 FC Halifax Town 2 Att: 3173 (away fans: 159) |
What is it with the Harriers and home games?
Report: Phil Lench
What is with the Harriers and home games? There we go, that’s the question that Phil Brown and his players have to ask themselves after yet another diabolical performance following a brilliant win away from home a few days earlier. And that win came at champions Chesterfield FC too but at home we we can’t even string two passes together let alone a shot on target during the entire ninety minutes.
This was supposed to be a must win game that we hoped would get us out of the bottom four for the first time since September the ninth when we drew 1-1 at home to Rochdale AFC and back then we hit the heady heights of nineteenth. Since then we have been strong relegation candidates and now we are relegation certs. Another home defeat against Eastleigh FC next Saturday will confirm our NLN destiny but then we’ll go to Barnet FC seven days after for the final game and roll them over four or five nil.
At home we expect to see our team playing in a relaxed manner, passing the ball around, finding space in front of goal and at least getting a shot off. Today we saw non of this and instead decide to hoof the ball (yet again) into high winds, watch as Halifax headed the ball back at us, fail to control the ball and so fail to make a telling pass and as for in front of goal: give me a break please?
Halifax were no better but employed far less hoofing and passed the ball out from defence, controlled the ball better but, like us, still couldn’t get a shot on target.
All in all it was dire and possibly one of the worst first half of a game witnessed at Aggborough in many a year.
HT: 0 – 0
We actually started the second half better than expected and looked to be well in control of the game. The fans began to get behind the team with Mexican Wave style clapping reverberating around the ground. The team responded well to give us twenty minutes of ‘excitement’ but then poor substitutions began to take hold. Instead of strengthening us and stepping us up a gear all three subs backfired totally.
The first sub was unfathomable in taking off the one bright spark in Sam Robinson and replacing him with the abysmal, so far, Sam Bellis. The crosses coming from out wide had now dried up and Bellis wandered around the pitch like a stray lamb looking for it’s mother.
The replacement of Reiss McNally by Cole Kpekawa seemed to be a tactical one with Reiss possibly carrying an injury but the loss of our only creative midfielder for an out of position Jay Emmanuel-Thomas was baffling. The kind of important game that you need a striker like JET up front and he’s being played almost as a defender.
Their first goal came against the run of play. The ball was lost by us in midfield and Max Wright, clearly offside, got onto the ball with Christian Dibble faffing about outside his area trying to stop Wright from reaching it. A quick look up and the ball was in the net.
We tried to get back into the game but our hearts no longer seemed in it. Movement was slow, ideas were lacking and so was the excitement. We had a couple of free kicks taken by Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain and JET from far too far out that ended up over the stand. A corner, of only two the whole game, from JET that didn’t even reach the first man and still not a shot on target.
The clinching second goal came from a poor back pass by the Ox that ended up with no pace on it and easy pickings for the opposition. The ball ended up with Wright once again who took two of his team mates with him and our defenders standing off watching in awe as they watched, and learned, how to do it. The ball was slotted, with ease, past Dibble.
At the end of the game Alex Penny pulled up with a hamstring injury so will probably miss the next game but we won’t. We’ll still be there praying for a never to arrive miracle.
FT: 0 – 2
Goals for Halifax Town: Wright 65, 89
The Harriers Online MotM is: Matt Preston
Talk about the game here
Latest table and stats here
| Harriers | Goals | Subs | Time | Cards |
| Dibble | ||||
| Penny | ||||
| Richards | ||||
| Oxlade-Chamberlain | ||||
| Preston |  | |||
| McNally |  | 70 | | |
| Brown | ||||
| Weston |  | 73 | ||
| Morgan-Smith | ||||
| Hemmings | ||||
| Robinson |  | 64 | ||
| Subs: | ||||
| Palmer | ||||
| Kpekawa |  | 70 | | |
| Emmanuel-Thomas |  | 73 | ||
| Griffiths | ||||
| Bellis |  | 64 | ||
| FC Halifax Town | Goals | Subs | Time | Cards |
| Johnson | ||||
| Golden | | |||
| Galvin | ||||
| Summerfield | | 75 | ||
| Senior | ||||
| Stott | ||||
| Hoti | | 55 | ||
| Wright |  | |||
| Harker | ||||
| Cooke | ||||
| Thompson-Sommars | | 73 | | |
| Subs: | ||||
| Hunter | | 75 | | |
| Evans | | 55 | ||
| Cosgrave | ||||
| Jenkins | | 73 | ||
| George | ||||
| Referee: | ||||
| Mr Andrew Miller | ||||
| Durham | ||||