17-01-20 – Preview – Kidderminster Harriers Vs Spennymoor Town

The Harriers go into this important game against Spennymoor Town with two new players in our ranks that we’ll be hoping will score the goals to ease us away from the relegation zone.

Again we’ve had a long break since our last game – a 1-0 home defeat to, also relegation threatened, Blyth Spartans – and in that time we have slipped lower down the table to eighteenth place and just three points in front of Blyth. A couple more defeats like that one and we’ll be there for sure.

This week we bought in nineteen year old Austin Samuels from the Wolverhampton U23’s side and he’ll be here with us until the end of the season. He’s not the experienced striker the fans were hoping for and even though there is still time to bring one in it’s time that isn’t on our side.

A new midfielder also arrived at the club in the shape of the former West Bromwich Albion youngster (now 23) Samir Nabi. He’s been training with the club for a while so should blend in easily enough and is someone that the Harriers manager, Jimmy Shan, knows well.

With our depleted squad we’ve also, strangely, sent more out on loan in the past two weeks. Harry Higginson has gone to Bromsgrove Sporting on loan again while Reiss Taylor-Randle has gone to Lye Town on loan. That’s in addition to Brandon Diau and Jaiden White already on loan at Redditch Utd and Stafford Rangers respectively.

To counter that we’ve now completed the tying up of our existing loan players: Rhys Williams (although he’ll miss tomorrows game due to suspension), Will Mannion and Oliver Shenton until the end of the season.

Seventh placed Spennymoor are going through a poor spell at the moment with four defeats in their last four game. Their only victory coming in the New Years Day game at home to Darlington. In the last two games they’ve lost 3-0 at Kings Lynn Town and then last Saturday they suffered a home defeat to an improving Kettering Town.

They have yet to win at Aggborough, drawing our first ever meeting 2-2 in October 2017 with our goals coming from James McQuilkin and Andre Brown.

On the injury front we now have only Declan Weeks to come back from his injured toe problem and with the time off we’ve just had he should be in contention for a return right now.

Fans Forum: At last nights event the point was strongly made by the ‘top table’ that there was a need for greater positivity and less negativity from both the custodians of the club and from the fans. This negativity has been affecting the way certain players perform at Aggborough and it’s possible that with a more positive vibe from the fans then an improvement there could see an improvement on the pitch.

So, please, if we do lose the game or some players struggle then try not to boo them. Just give the team a little applause at the end for at least trying.

If you would like to read more about last nights meeting then I did a Twitter thread here and there’s also a thread on the forum here.

Photo © WWFC & WBA

Teams:

Harriers from:

Mannion, Palmer, Mountjoy, Davidson, R Johnson, Moyo, D Lowth, Prosser, Weeks, Scott, Butterfield, Shenton, Austin, Chambers, Fuller, E Williams, Freemantle, S Lowth, Peniket, Hemmings, Samuels,  Nabi.

Spennymoor Town from:

Atkinson, Gould, Mason, Brogan, Magnay, Buddle, Curtis, Henry, A Johnson, Anderson, Ramshaw, Chandler, McKenna, Cogdon, Boyes, Taylor, Roberts, Forbes, Butroid, Earing.

Referee: Mr Matthew Corlett. Liverpool

Talk about the game here

Links to Spennymoor Town websites here

Find Pubs around Kidderminster here