Hereford FC
host Alfreton Town on Tuesday evening on what will presumably be a heavy pitch,
kick off 7:45pm. The pitch was heavier than a hungover Black Sabbath when this
one was originally scheduled a fortnight ago, heavy enough in fact to bring about
a postponement. That may not have been a bad thing, as the Bulls’ back line had
just been terrorised in embarrassing fashion in the preceding match against
Southport by nothing more sophisticated than route-one missiles into the box,
and any enduring shellshock from that may have led to more slapstick defensive
leakages.
However,
instead, the weather delivered an opportunity to regroup and for Russell Slade
to continue to gradually improve the quality of the squad. The upshot of this
was a highly creditable 0-0 draw at Darlington last time out, with Hereford
defending superbly with ten men for most of the game following Tommy
O’Sullivan’s inexplicable brain lapse. It’s not often that a 0-0 draw at Darlo
can hint at some green shoots of recovery, but it must have given the squad, particularly
the defence, a much-needed boost.
Despite the
resolve exhibited against the Quakers, the centre of defence still looks like
an Achilles heel, and the reportedly imminent return of Martin Riley doesn’t
entirely look like the answer there judging by his performances before injury.
However, with
the likes of Stephen Dawson and Ben Pollock now protecting them, Josh Gowling
and Jordan Cullinane-Liburd have the chance to prove that they’d always been unfairly
exposed pre-Slade by midfield players brought in from bang-average teams by the
previous regime, a regime that arguably employed too many players patently not
up to the rigours of this division, or at least the rigours concomitant with a
tilt at promotion.
Slade seems
to have the connections in the game to have enabled him to start bringing the
calibre of player in to the club that Tim Harris, on behalf of the poor,
blameless patsy Marc Richards, hadn’t and hasn’t been able to. Nuneaton no longer seems to be the knee-jerk source when a player is needed. In hindsight, how was that ever acceptable last season?!
The other
Achilles heel, demonstrating that the squad is two-footedly fallible if nothing
else, is up front. There are suddenly options at least, although they’re yet to
prove that they’re actually goalscoring ones. It seems that Slade likes Reece
Styche, and despite his unconvincing start to the season, his record is such
that he’ll surely click eventually. Kelsey Mooney looks like he has a goal or
two in him, and Taylor Allen’s on loan from Forest Green, which on paper
admittedly looks all wrong but times are changing up above Nailsworth (as
reflected in my recent Ecotricity bills), so he may be worth a look.
More
intriguing is Victor Sodeinde. Notts Forest must have seen something in the 19-year-old
in signing him from Maidstone, and he should surely make his home debut in some
capacity in this one. Elsewhere, Symo is Symo and Brad Ash and Rowan Liburd
really, really need to start showing something that looks goal-shaped before
they’re bang to rights as ‘strikers’ under the Trades Description Act.
Alfreton
were having a solid season until the wheels fell off recently, and they’ve lost
four of their last five league games. So far on their travels they've lost to
Kettering but also thrashed Guiseley. At home they’ve beaten Bradford and
Southport, recent beneficiaries of Hereford’s basket-case travel sickness. Most
recently they’ve lost at home to a resurgent Spennymoor, and on Saturday 3-0 at
Chester, where any team worth its salt at least scores a goal.
This is,
essentially, a gimme. And without
wishing to sound greedy, it really is high time the Bulls put in a bit of a
performance too if they’re going to convince supporters that next spring could
provide some play-off excitement.
See you
there.
COYW