25-11-22. Match preview Vs Gloucester City

Preview: Phil Lench

Happy Days. We’re back on track after that late, late win at AFC Telford Utd on Tuesday evening that gave us our first league win in five games. It was good to see the back of that worst run of defeats for some time and now we just have to hope that we can get another win against Gloucester City tomorrow. Don’t forget that we also won at St Albans City in the FA Trophy last Saturday.

We saw debuts for a couple more of our new signings and both Reiss McNally and Paddy McLaughlin started with McNally looking the more useful of the two. McLaughlin isn’t yet match fit after missing most of York City’s season so far with injury. The two that debuted at St Albans, Tom Billson and Joe Leesley, also started and of the two Leesley is the standout. Possibly one of the best signings Russ Penn has made so far.

Our late goals at Telford came from Zak Brown, his second in two games, and Ethan Freemantle who scored our winning goal two minutes after Zak had drawn us level. Up until then we’d been on the backfoot as Telford pressed us continually before running out of steam for us to capitalise and grab the valuable three points. Tomorrow we have to build on that.

Yesterday defender Joe Starbuck returned to his parent club Sheffield Utd while Nathan Lowe left the club on loan to Macclesfield FC. In the first aid room still are Alex Penny and Nathaniel Knight-Percival who, it’s to be believed, has had a bit of a setback in his recovery and we’ll be looking at January  before we see them again. There’s still no news on the future of Yusifu Ceesay and if he’s going out on loan or not.

City have three former Reds in their squad with the main one being the much missed goalkeeper Brandon Hall. Brandon was with us for two seasons but decided to leave us for a team nearer his London area home and then signed for Hereford FC a month later.

They also have Kennedy Digie there too along with Matt Barnes-Homer who is now a player-coach with them.

This will be our first home game in a while, the last being the defeat to Darlington FC on bonfire night, and those two most recent wins and a new look line-up should hopefully be enough to earn us all three points.

Teams:

Harriers from:

Billson, Palmer, Emery, Richards, Foulkes, McNally, Pearce, Margetson, Leak, Byrne, Brown, Owen-Evans, Leesley, McLaughlin, Rogers, Martin, Freemantle, Bearne, Hemmings, Morgan-Smith, Ceesay.

Gloucester City from:

Hall, Avenall, Jones, James, Nugent, Leadbitter, Digie, Hill, Tiensia, Evans, Morgan, Eweka, Buse, Owers, O’Sullivan, Spence, Andrews, O’Brien, Jeremiah, McClure, McHale, Barnes-Homer, Mitford, Phillips. 

Referee: Mr Dale Baines. Liverpool

Talk about the game here

Links to Gloucester City websites here

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