This season is a different story with the defence seemingly bearing the brunt of the mishaps. We are already having to cope without Chey Dunkley for an extended length of time but now we have Mickey Demetriou (right) missing from the back line for up to six weeks with a fractured, in two places, wrist following his heavy fall during the second half against Aldershot last Friday evening.Yesterday we were also informed that striker Michael Gash could be out for a while with a hamstring injury picked up in morning training while Amari Morgan-Smith has a stomach bug. Steve Burr said Gash will assessed before the game tomorrow while AMS should recover in time just in case. We also have minor injuries to Joe Lolley, Josh Gowling and Jack Byrne too but they should be ok to join the squad.
The one bit of good news is that Jamie Tolley could be available at last having recovered from his Achilles injury picked up in the first game of the season. He played in a friendly at Burton during the week and came through unscathed so if called on he will HAVE to do a job.
Chester are struggling!
Is that an understatement? No, I don't think so but they were expected to being better than they are when they got promoted last season after running away with the title. The other three clubs that came up, Halifax, Welling and Salisbury, are all doing well or holding their own so what has gone wrong at the Deva?
Who knows and it's a sure thing that the manager, Neil Young, doesn't seem to know either. He has a talented squad at his disposal and very few injuries but they just don't seem to be clicking. When they lost 3-1 at our gaff a few weeks ago the scoreline seemed to be very flattering towards us because City didn't play too badly and it was just us being very OK.
Since then they have gained two very good results, 2-0 win at Wrexham and a 2-1 home win against Macclesfield, but then they go and throw it all away with poor result in the following away games and they're back to square one. saying that they seem to do better at home even if they can't score goals. 0-0's against Dartford and Grimsby are testament to that.
They sent out midfielder Craig Mahon, on loan to AFC Fylde yesterday and then bought in forward Jon Atkinson from Evo-Stik League club Cammell Laird soon after. Obviously trying to gain some extra firepower.
They have possibly just the one injury, to defender George Horan, with him suffering from a hip injury.
Hopefully with this bad injury situation we'll be either recalling Ryan Rowe and Ty Williams from their loans at Stourbridge and Sutton Coldfield or we'll be bring some loan players in. Whatever we do need to get some cover in PDQ otherwise this season could be going pearshaped soon. For that reason, and Chesters decent home form, I'll be going for a scrappy draw this time out although it's to be hoped that we could get an early first double of the season.
Photo © EMPICS
Teams:
Harriers from:
Lewis, N Vaughan, L Vaughan, Grimes, Gowling, Tolley, Storer, Fowler, Jackman, Lolley, Angus, Dance, Johnson, Malbon, Morgan-Smith, Gittings, Gash, Blissett.
Chester from:
Danby, Fearon, Kay, Heath, Horan, Linwood, Harrison, Reed, Jarrett, Mills, Lindfield, L Turner, McIntyre, N Turner, A Williams, Higginbotham, McDonald, Seddon, Pugh, Titchiner, Atkinson.
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