22-11-20 – Preview – Gloucester City Vs Kidderminster Harriers

Preview: Phil Lench

The Harriers will be hoping to build on that emphatic victory at Alfreton Town on Saturday with another ‘on the road’ win at struggling Gloucester City tomorrow evening. On Saturday a wonder strike from Omari Sterling-James, along with a superb brace from Sam Austin, gave us a 3-0 lead in the first half and that scoreline was increased by Amari Morgan-Smith in the second half when he scored his first league goal of the season.

Alfreton pulled a goal back in the dying minutes of the first half to make it 3-1 but they never really threatened us much.

Now we face a team that looked odds on for promotion last season until Covid took hold and the season ground to a halt. Internal upheaval at the club saw them start the season struggling to match that form and that poor form soon led to the removal of Paul Groves as their manager two months ago. Lee Mansell is now in temporary charge there with his long term future dependent on results.

Those results since Mansells appointment had been no better than his predecessor with only the single win in the nine games since Groves’ departure. That win came at home to Farsley Celtic two Saturdays ago but the did pick up a point at Darlington FC on Saturday last even though they did lead 2-0 until Ben Gerring put through his own net to give Darlo a lifeline that they capitalised on fifteen minutes from the end.

Following the managerial change almost all of the loan players bought in by Groves were sent back to their parent clubs and other fringe players were released. You can see more detail about that in Shanes bit lower down.

We should be at full strength for the game with no noticeable injuries from the Alfreton game although Alex Penny seemed to have a twinge in the ankle that he injured against AFC Telford Utd a week and a bit ago. He recovered then so he’ll probably recover again. He is a big boy after all. 

Ethan Freemantle missed the Saturday game but we have no idea why that was so he could be in or he could be out.

As for Gloucester they’ll just have long term injured Jack James missing. He got injured in pre-season and won’t be back until next February at the earliest.

Could we continue our current good form at City? There’s a good chance of that as long as we don’t mess up as we did last season there in a game that became a victim of the written off season.

Photo © KHFC

Teams:

Harriers from:

Simpson, Emery, Richards, Cameron, Penny, Foulkes, Bajrami, Lowe, Austin, Montrose, Lissimore, Bonds, Carrington, Martin, Freemantle, Bastable, Clayton-Phillips, Tolley, Hemmings, Morgan-Smith, White, Sterling-James.

Gloucester City from:

Cole, Armstrong, Gerring, Harrison, Thompson, Leadbitter, Galvin, Nugent, Robert, Dawson, Tomlinson, O’Sullivan, Sheaf, Young, Noel-Williams, McClure, Mensah, King, Hulbert. 

Referee: Mr Savvas Yianni. Weston-super-Mare

Shanes Opposition Stats Pack:

At home in the league: York City 4-0, Kettering Town 0-2, Curzon Ashton 1-2, Bradford (PA) 0-0, AFC Telford Utd 2-2, Farsley Celtic 2-0.

Goals (all competitions): Hulbert – 5, King – 4, McClure – 3, Young – 2, Leadbitter – 1, Thompson – 1, Dawson – 1,  Robert – 1, Chambers-Parillon – 1.

Lee Mansell took over on an interim basis on September 29th. He’s got it now until the end of the season, contract talks are set for the new year so that’ll see him through until the end of next season, theoretically anyway.

Since he’s been in charge: P8 W1 D3 L4 (all comps) Home form under Mansell: BPA 0-0, Telford 2-2, Farsley 2-0. Home form under the former manager Paul Groves: York 4-0, Kettering 0-2, Curzon 1-2, Longlevens 3-1 (FAQ2).

They’ve scored in 4 of Mansell’s 8 games. All or nothing though, under him they’ve registered either 0 goals or exactly 2. Their last home defeat was on September 11th, under Groves, when Curzon beat them.

Top scorer is Ollie Hulbert, on loan from Bristol Rovers. He’s got 5 in 5 including a pair of braces v Farsley and Darlington. He was on loan at Hereford earlier in the season, scoring once in 6 games (3 starts) so something seems to have clicked.

They have a high turnover of players again, as expected with the management changing. Since the start of the season, they’ve moved 7 players on, of which only one was at the club on loan. This doesn’t include Danny King who is on a short term loan to Nuneaton and bagged a hat trick when they battered Stourbridge the other week. If he joined for a month, he should be available. Only public info I found was the loan was “short term” starting on October 21.

Goalkeeper Alex Avenell is part of their U23s setup and has been on the bench for the senior side once. Spent last season with Harriers U23’s.

The Squad (appearances are starts + sub, includes both league and FAC):

Goalkeepers: Liam Armstrong (P4 conceded 14), Jake Cole (P13 conceded 17), saved the only penalty he’s faced.

Defence: Ryan Galvin ( P16, on loan from Sheff Wed until Jan),  Ben Gerring (P2 ), Tom Harrison (P10), Jack James (P0, out long term injured), Dan Leadbitter (P16, 1 goal), Ben Nugent (P6), 1 red card v Brackley and missed the Farsley game. Returned on Saturday v Darlington),  Jordan Thompson (P7, 1 goal, 1 red v Folkestone).

Midfield: Kevin Dawson (P14, 1 goal), Joe Jeremiah (P1), Tom O’Sullivan (P6), Fabien Robert (P11, 1 goal, 1 red v Chorley), Max Sheaf (P11), Lucas Tomlinson (P6, on loan from Bristol Rovers until Jan), Jordan Young P14, 2 goals).

Attack: Ollie Hulbert (P5, 5 goals, on loan from Bristol Rovers until Jan), Danny King (P10, 4 goals, on loan at Nuneaton), Matt McClure (P12, 3 goals), Bernard Mensah (P9), Dejon Noel-Williams P3), Leon Chambers-Parillon (P5, 1 goal. On loan from Oxford for 1 month until re-called).

Talk about the game here

Links to Gloucester City websites here

Find Pubs around Kidderminster here