Following his withdrawal from the Wrexham game during the second half it has now been confirmed that Justin Richards received a bad eye injury and will miss the game tomorrow evening and also the upcoming FA Cup game against Curzon Ashton this weekend. The ball hit him square in the eye and filled with blood straight away so, with fears that there could be some major damage, he was rushed straight to hospital where it was found to be worse than it looked. Following a visit to an Ophthalmic Consultant he has been told to rest it for a week at least.
Standing by to take over his role will be either Darryl Knights or Stefan Moore. Knights came on in place of Justin on Saturday but struggled to make any impression on the game but he may get more of a chance at Oxford.We have no other injuries in the side.
Oxford will be smarting pretty strongly after being on the wrong end of some games in recent weeks. They lost at fellow strugglers Grays two weeks ago and then on Saturday they got an almighty thrashing at Histon when they lost 5-2 to the new League leaders.
They had Billy Turley taken off in that game when he suffered a re-occurrence of a previous neck injury and was sent to a chiropractor this morning to try to release a trapped nerve. If he doesn't make the game then Ben Hinchliffe will take his place. He played in the game at Aggborough when Turley missed that game for the same reason that he only played part of Saturdays game.
Also possibly missing for them will be Barry Quinn with a long term ankle problem and Matt Day after he came out of the Histon game with some bad bruising.
The former Harriers favourite James Constable is now at Oxford (you knew that anyway) but his scoring prowess isn't as good now that he's playing in a losing side. Only seven goals for him so far but compare that to the eleven he had scored for us by the same stage last season.
Hopefully he won't be adding to his tally against us while Matt Barnes-Homer will be hoping to add a couple to his eight so far.
We will also be having the dubious pleasure of Amy Rayner officiating for us again. It's time some one got her up the duff.
With Oxford in turmoil and the fans baying for blood it may not be the best time to face a back lash from some poor results. As proved so far this season we're more than capable of dealing with them and I think we could and should come back with another bag full of points to send us up to second place in the table.
Photo © KHFC
Teams:
Harriers from:
Bartlett, Coleman, Baker, Riley, Lowe, Ferrell, Creighton, Bowler, Jones, Knights, McDermott, D Bennett, Hayward, Brittain, Penn, Barnes-Homer, Smikle, Moore.
Oxford from:
Turley, Hinchcliffe, Dobson, Day, Carruthers, Burnell, Foster, Quinn, Odubade, Murray, Constable, Guy, Haldane, Trainer, Willmott, Clarke, Fisher, Benjamin, Deering, Taylor, L Bennett, Hutchinson, Groves, Evans.
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