Hereford FC host struggling Guiseley this Saturday in a match they’ll be keen to control for 90 minutes and win with the minimum of fuss, building on last Saturday’s excellent win over Boston, and pushing ever closer to securing a place in the play-offs in spring. There, easy as that!
In November, Hereford came away from West Yorkshire three points to the good with a 2-0 win following a scrappy but effective counter-attacking display. The last time the clubs met at Edgar Street was back in December 2019 with Russell Slade in charge, and if you can’t remember that match it’s hardly surprising – it was a 0-0 stalemate, the highlight of which was the curiosity of Guiseley playing for a while with two players wearing a number 5 shirt, one of whom was ex-Bull Kennedy Digie. Yes, it was that bad.
Last time out the Lions narrowly beat Darlington at home with a solitary late goal to maintain a bit of breathing space between themselves and Farsley, who are currently in this season’s one relegation spot. A valuable three points undoubtedly, but it was against a Quakers side seemingly doing their damnedest to get sucked into relegation trouble themselves.
Before that, Saturday’s visitors lost narrowly at Southport, a ridiculously tough place to go and get a result this season, so there’s no shame in that. However, going further back, two wins in their last ten, and eight losses from their 11 away games so far this season, suggests that they’re fallible to say the least, and those stats make this something of a must-win for Hereford if those play-off ambitions are to be maintained.
Striker David Bremang, 21, and defender Jason Sraha, 19, were brought in on loan from Barnsley before that Darlington game, with Guiseley doing all they can to ensure that they remain in the National League North next season. They’re currently just five points clear of Farsley. Bremang has been prolific at u23 level, and has got as far as the Barnsley bench in Championship matches. He could be dangerous.
Another recent arrival is Dom Tear, who looks to have been a shrewd signing. The ex-Halifax winger scored two in their recent win at home to Alfreton.
For Hereford, competition for starting places is hotting up nicely, with Keenan Patten no doubt eager to show supporters, and his parent club Cardiff City, that he’s got what it takes to make it at senior level, and a near-fit again Harry Pinchard is there or thereabouts. It’ll be smashing to have him back for the run-in - like a new signing. Also, new goalkeeper Andreas Sondergaard’s presence at the club is keeping Brandon Hall honest, although hopefully Brandon won’t have much to do on Saturday, either honestly or dishonestly.
A sure sign of how things have progressed is that it’s very hard, if not impossible, to make a case for this being a virtually unwatchable 0-0 like that game back in 2019. OK, there are spells in matches, sometimes even entire halves (OK, often entire halves) when it doesn’t quite click, but when this team are good they are very, very good. In 2019 under Russell Slade it was just horrid.
The in-form creative four-piece of Kouhyar, TOE, McLean and Gordon have caused problems for better teams than Guiseley recently. Unfortunately, another sure sign of progress is that the players responsible for that progress get noticed, and Jaanai Gordon left the club in midweek, bound for Liverpool. Was it Liverpool? Ah no, it was, reportedly, er, Brackley, that feted footballing mecca, so all a bit less understandable then. The player was apparently offered a pay rise to stay but preferred to leave anyway. With Mo Touray able to step in as a like-for-like replacement, the effect on that creative four-piece will hopefully be minimal, more like Ringo rather than Lennon leaving the Beatles, or Posh flouncing off to Brackley rather than Sporty Spice (Ah OK, bad example, there were five of them weren’t there?).
It’s obviously a shame, and it’ll irk the manager that the money isn’t there to compete with apparently ‘smaller’ clubs, but you either follow a model of financial sustainability or you don’t. On that subject, one plus point this week was the announcement that the board is backing Josh Gowling in starting to get contracts sorted to keep players at the club over the summer and into next season. Supporters will be hoping that this move will ensure that the sort of false start endured last autumn as the players got to know each other during actual matches won’t be repeated in 2022/23.
Any complacency ahead of this one would be a big mistake, but it looks like an excellent opportunity to make it eight wins from the last ten home league matches, and that’s fortress territory. It’s been some time since the f-word could be used with any legitimacy in relation to events at the Edgar Street Athletic Ground, or at least that particular f-word.
COYW