Harriers have another stalemate away day

The Harriers travelled up to Macclesfields Moss Rose ground today looking for a win in their second away game of the season.  Our first was at Lincoln City a few weeks back that ended 0-0 and sadly this game was to end the same way.  As in the Lincoln game this one was also notable for the lack of creativity in the Harriers against a team that were somehow worse than us.

The team selection wasn't the most inspiring when it was announced before the kick off with Jack Byrne dropped in favour of Jamie Grimes.  Byrne must have picked up yet another injury because he wasn't on the bench either.  Grimes actually had a very good game as it happens but he wasn't the creative outlet that we are looking for and I would rather we replaced injured players like for like and surely Callum Gittings would have made more sense.

On the bench for the Harriers was Ahmed Obeng in his first appearance since his nightmare of a debut at Lincoln when he was withdrawn early with what seemed to be stadium shell shock.

On a sunny, but cool, afternoon in the shadow of the lower Peak range the two sides battled it out without any show of passion or a willingness to inject any excitement into the game.  It took a good ten minutes before the healthy attendance of away fans had anything to shout about when Aman Verma and Grimes interchanged passes before supplying Marvin Johnson with the ball to deliver an awkward cross in but it was too near to the Macc keeper Rhys Taylor to do any real damage.

Our first clear chance of a goal didn't arrive until the thirty fifth minute when Craig Reid collected Jared Hodgkiss' pass only to see his shot saved by the Macclesfield keeper.  With the half drawing to a close the home team had their first sight of goal when Luke Waterfall tried to force the ball home from a corner and then Verma sent in a shot that wasn't strong enough to trouble the keeper and was going wide anyway.

After that below par first period the Harriers fans were hoping for better in the second (the Macclesfield fans were probably thinking the same too).  We did seem to be more up for it this time round and so it proved with a rash of corners awarded our way but many of them not executed too well with Kyle Storer once again failing to get the ball beyond the first man.  The closest we came was when Reid again fired just too wide of the target.  Nathan Blissett also came close with a header that was blocked by the former Luton defender George Pilkington.

Marvin Johnson was hacked down by Paul Lewis and soon after he was withdrawn from the game and Obeng sent on.  Again Obeng didn't look comfortable at all and failed to make any real impression on the game.

Later on, with the front line making no real dent in the home defence, two more changes were made.  Michael Gash and Reece Styche came on for Blissett and Reid but for some strange reason we failed to kick on and instead allowed Macc into the game more.

With ten minutes remaining Danny Lewis made his two and only saves of the game when he first dived down to the feet of Scott Barrow to smother the ball as the defender ran headlong towards him and then grabbed hold of an effort from Waide Fairhurst that wasn't really struck all that hard in the first place.  Macc had futile calls for a penalty soon after when a ball hit Kevin Nicholson on the arm from close range but it rightly fell on deaf ears.

Minutes from the end we should have put the game to bed when Styche headed the ball over from Jamie Grimes cross when he really should have buried the damned thing.

So the Reds are still waiting for their first goal away from home but at least we still haven't conceded any.  It would be nice to get a positive result away at Dover next Saturday but first we have a much awaited clash with Steve Burrs Chester on Monday.  Hopefully that'll provide a feast of goals and hopefully they'll all be for us.

REFEREE:

Mr R Joyce Co Durham