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Dr Jekyll was last seen weathering a storm of Barcelonaesque tiki-taka passing football from Fylde before coming out on top with an impressively spirited display. Before that, the good doctor had progressed into the first round of the FA Cup and given Boston a lesson in clinical finishing on their own patch. We like Dr Jekyll.
In contrast, Mr Hyde has overseen irredeemably awful defeats against Banbury, Gloucester and Bradford, and thinks that every time progress appears to have been made it would be a good idea to put a spanner in the works. This has left the club in 15th place, having won five and lost five, and won alternate games over the last five. Back-to-back wins have been achieved just once this season, over two months ago – Jekyll, then Hyde, and repeat.
Having said that, the team now looks unrecognisably more secure defensively since Aaron Amadi-Holloway and Orrin Pendley partnered up in the middle, and they performed admirably in the first half on Tuesday to ensure that the Bulls took a daylight-robberyish 1-0 lead into half time, although the whole team individually and collectively displayed a really impressive rearguard action in that respect, laying the foundations for an excellent win. For once, the Bulls looked a good deal more streetwise than the opposition, outsmarting a Fylde side that played most of the actual football, although admittedly outsmarting their right back wasn’t that difficult.
With things coming together defensively, consistency must surely be a by-product of that, because if you don’t concede you can’t lose. Even the Fylde right back would understand that.
The Bulls’ counterattacking thrust was partially blunted on Tuesday with Ryan McLean out injured. If he’s back for this one, Jack Holmes may make way, and it could be that the new signing could be used more as an impact sub in forthcoming matches rather than as a foil for Ty Barnett up front. He looks tailor-made for that impact role, unleashing his box of tricks on tiring defences over the last half hour of games, at least while he finds his feet at this higher level.
With Kane Thompson-Sommers now fit again and Ryan Lloyd on the way back, Josh Gowling will have to decide who gets the nod alongside Jethro Hanson, and actually does a side with two defensive midfielders (Hanson and Haines) look a bit negative and unambitious anyway?
The Nash are one of the smaller clubs in the division, but they punched above their weight last season and were in contention for the play-offs right up until the final games. Admittedly that was the case for most of the division, so perhaps it’s nothing to write home about, but they also looked a good deal better than Hereford at home, and in the second half away. Like the Bulls, they faded and ended up finishing 14th.
In previous seasons they’d specialised in finishing 18th, but despite that modest record the head-to-heads haven’t favoured Saturday’s visitors. This fixture last season was a real Mr Hyde effort. A 3-0 loss in February which was the beginning of the end of Hereford’s stop-start play-off push.
Josh Hancock has scored five from midfield this season, but their strikers have yet to really get going. Fellow midfielder Connor Dimaio is another to be wary of.
The hosts sit just a point above Hereford in 12th place, and that mid-table situation is already starting to mirror that of last season, when a great blob of clubs from seventh to 16th were separated by a handful of points, with no-one able to string together any consistency to climb away from the blob.
Curzon have actually found some consistency, losing just one game in their last seven, but they’ve been fond of a draw during that time too.
Their recent defeat at Bradford may have been something to suggest that they’re no great shakes, but it’s probably not a good idea to dwell too much on recent defeats at Bradford.
They’ve beaten both Gloucester and Kidderminster away so far this season, suggesting that they’re a good counterattacking team, which I think I recall them demonstrating at Edgar Street last season. The onus will fall on them to set the pace at home though, and the Bulls seem to be settling into a tactical default position of using the speediness in the team to catch sides on the break.
It's a super playing surface at the Tameside Stadium and manager Adam Lakeland likes to play the right way, so this should be a good advert for the National League North, something positive to counteract the existence of Southport FC.
It’s a free hit against Pompey after this, and it would be good to snaffle three more points here before going into that nothing-to-lose match. That should result in being on the periphery of the play-offs, and fuel hopes yet again that we’ve finally seen the back of Mr Hyde.
COYW