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This is arguably the toughest test in the division currently, considering that Tamworth and Scunthorpe have both slowed down recently. Chorley contrastingly have sped up, winning seven of their last ten games. Their excellent recent run was ignited by the arrival on loan at the club of Coventry’s Marco Rus, familiar to Bulls fans from his brief but impressive spell as a loanee at Edgar Street. Thankfully he’s now left, and is safely many miles away on loan at CFR Cluj in Romania.
Chorley travelled to doomed Bishops Stortford on Tuesday night and, although they were of course expected to win, they still actually had to do the winning, and duly did, matching Hereford with a 4-1 victory.
That match was useful to the Bulls though, in that the trip to Hertfordshire followed by a trip to Herefordshire means that the Lancastrians will have done a fair amount of travelling by the time they get started at 3pm here. Shame there’s not a National League North club in Hampshire, otherwise they could have done the full My Fair Lady. I’m sure it won’t be long before a club actually on the south coast somehow finds its way into the NLN.
Evesham-born manager Andy Preece will be delighted with the form of his charges as the season reaches its final weeks, after they faded last spring and missed out on a top seven position.
The good season they’re having has been all the more impressive as they lost main goal-getter Connor Hall in the summer to Solihull, and other established players like Scott Leather and Jon Ustabasi, to be replaced largely by youngsters from their education programme. A fabulous approach, and one to be applauded.
Chorley, with ex-Bull Harvey Smith playing his part at centre back, are as ever thoroughly formidable at home, but fallible away. They’ve lost as many as they’ve won on their travels this season.
Not-very-Dutch-sounding Dutch winger Justin Johnson is their top scorer with 13 goals, and Carlton Ubaezuonu, signed from Farsley in the summer, has 11. Johnson on the right wing is their danger man, and Lewis Hudson will have his hands full.
Incidentally, just to put things into perspective, the Chorley squad of 30 players includes five goalkeepers. Hereford in comparison have approximately one midfielder.
Of those five, loanee Max Dearnley is currently keeping regular goalie Matt Urwin out of the side. Could he be the latest in a long line of stoppers this season seemingly inspired rather than intimidated by the racket going on behind them in the Meadow End. Hopefully me saying that will be enough to ensure that he now has a nightmare.
Given how good The Magpies are at home, Hereford’s 2-1 win up there in late October was one of the season’s best performances. Doing the double over Chorley here on the back of the win at Peterborough in midweek would suddenly make the flirtation with the play-offs more of a full-on snogging session with the play-offs.
Aurio Teixeira will be available for selection again here following his suspension, and given the dearth of available midfielders he’d probably get a start if he turned up on crutches. Lassana Mendes continues his own suspension, and Jordan Lyden, having missed Tuesday’s game at Peterborough, will presumably be a big doubt again.
Alex Babos has done spectacularly well in attempting to be the entire midfield in the absence of everyone else recently, and if his dead-ball delivery continues to be as good as it has been it’s surely only a matter of time before the big lads up from the back start nodding or prodding a few goals in, now that Ollie Southern has got the ball rolling on that front.
Jid Okeke makes his home debut here, and looks like a bit of a gem. Who needs Marco Rus?
Hereford are unbeaten at Edgar Street in four encounters with Chorley. Admittedly only one of those ended in a win, but nevertheless it’s more of a good omen than a bad one I think.
And on the subject of omens and all such mumbo-jumbo, I mentioned recently that a/ the six-yard box gods hadn’t been all that kind to the Bulls this season, and b/ hopefully any bad luck kicking around between now and the end of the season was used up at Curzon Ashton.
Well, Ollie Southern’s goal on Tuesday was down to an assist from the six-yard box gods, so if they’re finally giving us a break maybe that luck is turning. Who knows, maybe we will also finally see a visiting goalkeeper playing like Tom Hanks rather than Gordon Banks. Having said that Tom Hanks could be a very good goalkeeper indeed so that may be a bad example, but ‘Hanks’ rhymes with ‘Banks’ and that was the most important factor just then.
Both Andy Williams and Paul Caddis have predicted recently that goals were in the offing, and they duly arrived on Tuesday. A few more here and the goal difference column will finally be in the black.
One to look forward to, and hopefully the visitors will be suffering from crippling bus legs.
COYW