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The Bulls return to league action following last weekend’s win in the FA Cup, with Paul Caddis’s new recruits hoping to be the difference between the team performing promisingly but losing prior to their arrival, and performing well and winning with them in the team. Jordan Lyden and Yusifu Ceesay may not be strikers, but their credentials are impressive and the boss has done well to bring them in. To have a player with Premier League experience at the club is very exciting, a big coup for Caddis, and a suggestion that his contacts book is a useful tool in his armoury, weapon in his shed or something. Regardless of careless metaphors, it’s better than Tim Wotsit’s contacts book anyway (I can’t remember his surname now, which could be a subconscious mental health self-protection device kicking in).
One would imagine Lyden will be hugely influential in midfield in the games to come. OK, he’s got a history of injuries punctuating his career to date, and he’s come to a club seemingly currently cursed with injury bad luck, but if he’d played 40 games a season for the last five seasons he’d be nowhere near the National League North. It’s high time a little gamble on a player paid off for Caddis, and if the Australian can stay fit he should be a joy to watch, a midfield general of the quality not seen at the club since Stephen Dawson during his brief stay in 2019.
I’ll probably regret saying this, but surely the squad is now not far off simply having too much quality to continue to do what Hereford teams have done for the last, well, their entire tenure in the National League North, losing games far too frequently and meekly, and getting out-battled, out-thought and out-passed. It feels like the direction of travel is generally forward under Paul Caddis despite the luck he’s had so far - much more considered and far less scattergun. Admittedly evidence for all of the above was scant last Saturday, but a performance and positive result here against a side any club with play-off aspirations should be comfortably beating at home should back up the premise.
Divisional minnows have come to Edgar Street this season and done well, with Rushall very unlucky to lose and Peterborough utterly deserving of their victory, but the Hereford players were still virtual strangers to one another in those games, better players have come in to replace those who weren’t up to it, and Paul Caddis is now several games in to being a more battle-hardened manager. It’s unlikely that the gate on Saturday will be anywhere near what it was at the start of the season, but those floaters will come back soon enough if any of the optimism I’ve put forward above becomes reality. In the meantime, the team has to eke out some results and performances in front of the hardcore 2000, starting here.
To put into perspective the difference in the size of these clubs, quite apart from Saturday’s hosts benefitting from that ‘hardcore 2000’ mentioned above, the visitors’ pre-season squad builder target appears to have been £3500 (no zeros missing). That’s not to say that clubs of that size can’t compete in this division with a bit of collective spirit, with Peterborough doing perfectly well last season (and winning at Edgar Street recently), and Alfreton getting into the play-offs last season on crowds of 350, but this looks like a good opportunity to build on last week’s win with another victory against stiffer opposition.
The Blues have yet to win away this season, taking a solitary point from a possible ten on their travels. A late equaliser got them out of jail last Saturday at home to two-divisions-lower Biggleswade in a 3-3 draw in the Cup, but in the replay on Tuesday they were beaten 3-1. Despite that less-than-glowing form, they sit two places above Hereford in the table, which tells its own story.
Lassana Mendes now has two goals this season from not that many minutes of football, and that, coupled with his ability to play in a number of positions, must be tempting Caddis to consider him for the starting XI here.
Nathan Cameron’s struggling with a hamstring although Kyle Howkins is back, in what’s a bit of an injury merry-go-round defensively. Ollie Southern’s sciatica means he’s a doubt too. More bad luck.
Paul Downing being contracted until January is, however, some good news defensively, and indeed generally. If his fitness holds, he’s also far too Rolls Royce to be poached by someone as tinpot as Brackley, so if any poaching is to be done it’ll be by a proper club, so that frustration should at least be avoided for once.
This will be the one where things start to click I reckon, and I don’t mean the joints of delicate Bulls players.
There, an entire preview without mentioning a certain pair of missing strikers.
Oh.
COYW