Hangover Cure?

With Tuesday still a painful memory for all who witnessed it, Hereford FC can quickly reduce the pain with a win against Blyth Spartans at Edgar Street on Saturday.

To cover the depressing and/or worrying things first, Blyth is of course yet another town in the northeast, which seems to be an issue for the Bulls. Secondly the extent to which it was men against boys on Tuesday at 0-0 was terrifying given that the opposition were below Hereford in the league and hadn’t long come out of a run when they were losing to everyone. It went downhill from there of course, but they thrived on the amount of possession they were allowed early on and built on that, looking for all the world like the home team.

A win here for Hereford could see them jump back into the play-off positions, but the hangover from that Tuesday display could take some time to recover from in terms of how far off the squad was from being able to compete with a side in tenth position.

Right, that’s that out of the way, now for the positives.

Unlike South Shields, Blyth aren’t full time, their playing budget is modest, and they’ve lost every time they’ve come to Hereford.

Spartans had a good run recently that saw them get out of the lower reaches of the division, which is generally their habitual home. However, they’ve lost their last two, so hopefully the Bulls can capitalise on any resultant dip in confidence, and grab an early goal.

They’re six points behind Hereford but admittedly have a game in hand.

Ex-Gloucester striker JJ Hooper has eight goals in 16 games this season, and came on as a substitute against Warrington on Saturday following an injury-hit start to 2023/24. Of their two other stand-out performers, JJ O’Donnell is out for the rest of the season with a dislocated shoulder sustained on Boxing Day, which is bad luck for him but good news for Bulls fans. Nicky Deverdics however is fit and well and much of what they do well will go through him in midfield. He’s also chipped in with six goals this season. Ex-Bulls loanee Jack Bodenham should start in central defence for them. One attacker they’ll have to do without will be recently departed Cedric Main, who contributed substantially to Darlington’s win over Hereford recently.

Blyth generally try to play the right way, which will be refreshing after seeing Morse, the South Shields number 5, seemingly suffer about three on-pitch brain haemorrhages on Tuesday, poor chap. He did very well to recover so quickly from all of them. Perhaps Shields could make a few quid by selling him to a lab somewhere – a head that goes from being very poorly indeed to right as rain within seconds must be worth something to medical science, and it might mean he’d have to be caged and experimented on for quite a long time, which I’d like. Quite why they still needed to cheat when in total control of a game is utterly, utterly beyond me.

Kyle Howkins and Yusifu Ceesay were, I thought, two players who came out of Tuesday night with some credit in the bank, and will be important again here in their vastly different roles. If the last game of the season is meaningless (hopefully because a play-off position has already been safely secured) I’d love to see those two exchange positions for it. Kyle as a slippery winger would be particularly worth paying to see.

Paul Caddis has of course been busy in the transfer market, giving the club a Premier League vibe by going crackers with signings before the end of January.

Right back Camron McWilliams presumably has Scottish and Welsh ancestry, and looked to have something about him in midweek. Kieran Phillips up front will be looking to show a little more here than he did on debut if given the chance, perhaps alongside Jason Cowley from the start. Left back Lewis Hudson arrives on an 18-month contract which suggests an unusual degree of confidence in him from manager and board. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders and a nitro button in his legs. He’ll presumably slot in at left back on Saturday, with Aaron Skinner moving rightwards.

One consequence of all this wheeling and dealing is that Adam Livingstone looks to have possibly played his last game for the club.

Hopefully the newcomers will inject some fresh impetus, but the frustrating thing is that up until very recently it didn’t seem that there was any need for fresh impetus, and that things were progressing nicely and on an upward trajectory. Perhaps the effort put in by a small squad to get into the play-offs,  and missing key players for big chunks of the season, has taken its toll, in which case the timing of bringing these players in with the club still bang in the mix looks right. 

In midfield, Aurio Teixeira will presumably come back in for Alex Babos or Maz Kouhyar, and when previously dropped his reaction was inspired. Something similar should ensure that the Blyth midfielders don’t have the freedom of Edgar Street to stroke the ball around with impunity like South Shields were able to do. They will instead have a jack russell constantly biting their ankles.

You’d normally want to see the rot stopped with a win after two losses of course, but it feels even more pressing here after Tuesday’s mauling. A reaction here will come, surely.

COYW