Beano surprisingly joined Utd pre season when he found himself out of favour - as did Scott Bevan - at Shrewsbury and sent out on a season long loan. It's believed that Mark Yates asked to have him back at Kidderminster but James declined the offer saying that he wanted to join Oxford in preference to us.Oxford will also be without a handful of other players too. Central defender Luke Foster was sent off against Ebbsfleet on Tuesday night and, with this being his second red card of the season, he'll miss four games. Everyone's favourite keeper, Billy Turley, is out long term after undergoing surgery to his shoulder at the end of last season but is now back in training. Utd bought in another keeper, Jake Cole, from QPR but his loan term has now expired and he has gone back to his club. That leaves Utd with just one keeper in Ben Hinchcliffe and it's he who will be facing us unless Oxford bring in another keeper on loan at the last minute.
Another former Harrier at Utd was also in the spotlight this week when Adam Murray said that he no longer wanted to be Captain any longer. He said that he wanted to concentrate on playing instead.We're still injury and suspension free, amazingly, and the only doubt could be the whereabouts of Russ Penn. He was rumoured to be joining Peterborough on loan this week but so far that hasn't materialised even though another player, Darren Gibson from Manchester Utd, has turned them down and the Harriers chairman Barry Norgrove and Peterborough's Barry Fry were both seen glad handing and deep in conversation at Grays on Sunday.
If Russ is gone by tonight then Dean Bennett will step into the breach and that would then explain why he is still here after playing on non contract terms so far.
On to the game itself and it looks like being our toughest challenge so far. Our Cotswold neighbours are never a pushover and won't be this time even though they have yet to get their season really underway with just two wins so far - against Eastbourne and Northwich, hmmmnnn?
In comparison our home form has been almost top notch with just two points dropped on the opening day game against Lewes. Since then we've beaten Altrincham, Rushden and Torquay and been pretty impressive looking too.
I think we'll keep our un-beaten home form going but not the winning streak.
Photo © KHFC
Teams:
Harriers from:
Bartlett, Coleman, Baker, Riley, Bignot, Lowe, Ferrell, Creighton, Bowler, Jones, Foley, Knights, McDermott, D Bennett, McGrath, Brittain, Penn, Barnes-Homer, Smikle, Richards.
Oxford Utd from:
Hinchcliffe, Day, Carruthers, Burnell, Quinn, Odubade, Murray, Guy, Haldane, Trainer, Willmott, Clarke, Benjamin, Deering, Taylor, L Bennett, Reid, Hutchinson, Groves, Osborne.
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