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The Sandgrounders were going very well up until recently, but have sandgrounded to a halt a bit in drawing four of their last five league games. That said, they’ve only lost one of their last ten, a surprising 3-1 home loss to Curzon Ashton.
Typically an unsavoury bunch, it can be a frustrating experience enduring their often extreme take on game management when the referee lets them referee him (or her).
Striker Jordan Archer is contracted to the club until May 2024, and scored 17 in 43 games last season. He’s strong, quick and knows where the goal is, and is one of those players who seems to have found his spiritual home at Haig Avenue following a few false starts earlier in his career. He has scored seven goals this season, the same as our own Ty Barnett.
Niall Watson, the manager’s son, has proved himself worthy of a place in the team regardless of his familial connections, with 15 goals in 27 matches for Southport since his move to the club from Accrington Stanley. He’s scored five this season from midfield.
Attacking midfielder Josh Hmami is another one to watch, and a player expected to move on to higher things soon. Southport’s MOTM on multiple occasions this season, the 22-year-old adds a creative spark to what has at times in the past been an exhibition of monochrome, unremitting brutality.
It does seem that a lot of new players have been brought in by manager Liam Watson over the last year or so, so maybe their ethos will have mellowed with that change in personnel, and they won’t be quite so objectionable. That may be optimistic given that the ethos presumably works its way down from the manager.
Once again, one can but hope for a no-nonsense ref, and for the Bulls to play their own game and not get sucked into the vortex of skullduggery, which was possibly the title of an episode of Doctor Who in about 1978.
Hereford will be keen to fly out of the traps in this one and continue the upturn in form that’s been shown in recent games, but to also remember to finish off flowing moves with goals. They don’t have to be flowing goals to finish the flowing moves, they can be deflections off shoulders from a yard out, as long as they’re goals.
With two consecutive postponements, the walking wounded will have had a bit longer to start running again, which should hopefully give Josh Gowling the opportunity to start packing the bench with returning first-teamers ready to play a cameo here. That could bring Ryan Lloyd and Aaron Amadi-Holloway into the reckoning.
With Marcus Rus proving to be a bit of a find since coming in on loan from Coventry, and Jack Holmes coming into the sort of form that very occasionally makes him unplayable at this level, Hereford’s attacking midfield options are growing. Ryan McLean adds to those options as he gets back up to speed following suspension, and unless something really odd happens it’s impossible to imagine the visitors being untroubled by those players. If they all kick on again from that performance against Chorley, this really could be very watchable with lots of goals scored in the right net.
Kane Thompson-Sommers will provide cleverly for them, and Jethro Hanson will chug endlessly, irritating the opposition and starting passages of play for the Bulls.
They say that only cockroaches would survive a nuclear war. Actually it would be cockroaches and Jethro Hanson, who would just keep chugging around post-Armageddon, entirely unaffected, still giving little five-yard sideways balls, even though there’s only cockroaches left to pass them to. He’s a bit like WALL-E.
As well as that threat from the attacking midfield whippersnappers, there’s the out-and-out striker to consider, and it would be good to see Ty Barnett, who should be nice and fresh going into this one, add to the recent expertly taken goal at Kings Lynn with another from open play.
The head-to-heads certainly don’t favour the hosts, who have gained just two points from the seven matches these clubs have contested since Hereford’s arrival in the NLN, but that just means they’re owed a win.
I’ve given up voicing the feeling that this could be ‘the one’ because it usually ends up as a total bin fire, but given that I haven’t even mentioned Jack Evans and the return of Thierry Latty-Fairweather, and Jordon Thompson seemingly improving with every game, I can’t help feeling that this could be ‘the one’. There, I’ve said it.
This is the last game before Christmas, so I’ll end by wishing everyone a very merry yuletime – see you on Boxing Day.
COTW