We started the game with loan signing Damian Spencer partnering Robbie Matthews up front and that just did not work out at all. During the second half Spencer was substituted for the other new loan signing Ryan Charles and that partnership with Robbie looked far, far better and is the one we should have started with.
Sadly we won't be seeing that happen tomorrow night because the ill fated Matthews picked up his fifth booking of the season and will now miss yet another enforced game.
I now expect to see Charles paired with Spencer and, to be honest, it's a partnership that could work with Spencer taking on Matthews rôle and knocking the balls down for Charles in the Barnes-Homer rôle.
Apart from missing Matthews we'll also be without both John Finnigan and Kyle Hadley again with groin problems.
The Tamworth team reads like a who's who of Kidderminster Harriers past. At the last count they have seven former players at The Lamb with the possibility of another one that was once on trial for us. Michael Blackwood, Michael Wylde, Neil Mackenzie, Simon Russell, Simon Brown, Iyseden Christie and the out on loan Gavin Hurren with Michael Briscoe being the former triallist.
They could be missing Blackwood tomorrow following an injured heel picked up last week and also Briscoe with a bit of a bug. Dominic Langdon returned to the side, after being out all season so far with a foot injury, in their narrow defeat at Grays on Saturday.
Again we're back to having to get into winning ways again and we need to put the nightmare of the Wombles behind us and go out and win this one against our local rivals (now they would have been a proper Christmas fixture rather than Chester City).
We have to hope that in training yesterday and today that our new strikeforce will have blended and gelled together enough to achieve that.
Photo © BFC
Teams:
Harriers from:
Coleman, Singh, Baker, Andrew, Riley, Courtney, Sharpe, Farrell, Knights, McDermott, McPhee, Bennett, Hayward, Caines, Costello, Spencer, Charles, Smikle, Dolman.
Tamworth from:
Alcock, Belford, Tait, Blackwood, Smith, Wylde, MacKenzie, Wright, Nicholson, Rodman, Pritchard, Sheridan, Shaw, Lyttle, Briscoe, Langdon, Mills, Lake-Gaskin, Russell, Looker, Gaughran, Ulker, Brown, Christie.
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