The Harriers continue their tough start to the season with the visit of old sparring partners Wrexham tonight to Aggborough. We began the season hopefully with a well earned draw at home to much fancied Grimsby but then went and narrowly lost our following two games at Dover and Guiseley even though we weren't outplayed, we just didn't take our chances.Wrexham themselves are, like Grimsby, also much fancied to win promotion back into the football league and, following a minor blip in an opening day defeat at Bromley, they have improved quickly and picked up excellent home wins against Torquay and Aldershot. That's just at home though so their away record is still suspect and they might find us a different kettle of leeks just as Grimsby found our kettle had fish in it.
We've had some right old battles over the years and possibly the most memorable were the play off games of 2013. We lost both of those games after building up to them with a fine victory at Wrexham ten days prior to the end but on the all important days we couldn't do our season justice with game fatigue taking hold in the heat of early summer. Since then our seasons have crumbled to dust and we now find ourselves struggling to survive on a low budget but some first rate players who aren't performing to the max.
On Saturday at Guiseley Reece Styche missed another couple of sitters while Craig Reid wandered round looking for somewhere to hide. Not good enough when we all need to pull together.
Of those first rate players we have Joe Clarke (right), formerly a Welsh Brummie but now back to being an English Brummie, after he joined us from Wrexham during the close season having spent four years with them. He's settled in quickly and although his distribution seems a bit iffy he has time to improve and keep the ball on the ground a bit more. It's in the air defensively where the main problems lie with the bulk of the goals conceded so far having come from free headers inside the box so Joe, and others, need to be working on this problem and hopefully by tonight we'll look a little tighter at the back.
To help in that ambition we should have defensive lynchpin Kelvin Langmead back from injury and also, possibly, Aman Verma back from his ankle injury too. It's also about time that Rob Taylor put in an appearance too because he won't be getting match fit without actually playing in a few matches. Or can't we afford to pay him?
Wrexham have the infamous ex Harrier Lee Fowler playing for them now as their captain although he has on the bench for all three games so far and has yet to get on the pitch. Strange? He left us under a cloud after being seen by some, fans and management alike, as a bad influence in the dressing room and ended up at Total Network Solutions (TNS) for a while but never really seemed to settle there. From there it was back over this way to Nuneaton with the same perceived outcome so it was something of a surprise when he signed for, then, League One Crawley Town and won plaudits for his passing ability and enthusiasm for the team. It was a surprise to them when he basically walked out on them at the end of the season to re-surface back at Wrexham for a second time.
Wrexham will be without Ross White with an ankle injury while Mark Carrington underwent an operation on his groin over the summer and is now on his way back. Tonight might be seen as too early for him and manager Gary Mills may not want to change a winning team.
Let's face it. We have just as good a chance as Wrexham in winning this game but unless we start to to pass the ball around a bit more, make our chances in front of goal count and be solid at the back then we're going to get short shrift. I'd be happy with a draw.
Latest: Harriers have signed left sided defender Andrew Fox on a month long loan from Peterborough Utd.
Photo © Newsgroup
Teams:
Harriers from:
Palmer, Snedker, Hodgkiss, Rowe-Turner, Green, Fox, Clarke, Jones, Maxwell, Langmead, Tunnicliffe, Taylor, Verma, Reffell, Sweeney, Reid, Styche, Campbell, Dawson, Hales, Singh, Wright.
Wrexham from:
Belford, Hodgson, Vidal, Newton, M Smith, Hudson, Fyfield, Fowler, Vose, Gray, Jennings, Moké, Jackson, Evans, York, A Smith, Watkins-Clark, Royle, Walsh, Logan, Roper, Reynolds.
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