So Friday night football returns to Roots Hall and it's the return leg against our first ever National League opponents, King's Lynn Town.
Since the heady days of our 100% record in the league back in August, The Linnets have parted company with manager Ian Culverhouse and replaced him with Tommy Widdrington, 11 years after he left his role at Southend where he'd briefly served as Paul Sturrock's Assistant.
Widdrington's appointment has done little to improve their form, with his solitary win coming in his first game in charge against Nantwich in the FA Trophy, a competition they subsequently went out of, like blues, on Saturday when they lost on penalties to National League South Tonbridge Angels (a team that to me sound like they should be playing in the WSL!).
To be fair to Tommy, he's had a couple of tricky league games to start off with against Chesterfield and Notts County, and let's hope Friday's game is equally as difficult for him as those games were.
He's bolstered his squad by signing one of his sons, Theo, on loan from Havant & Waterlooville. If he signs his other son, Kai, then he could be dancing his way through the Blues defence as he was one of the professional dancers on Strictly this year!
Their form in the league has been pretty dismal - prior to their win at home to Dover in Culverhouse's penultimate league match, their previous victory was on the 2nd October and followed by a draw against Barnet and then 8 successive league defeats, so they're not exactly coming to us with any kind of form.
Last Saturday's Dagenham defeat aside, our form has been much better lately and one would hope that most of those who were injured/rested/cup-tied last weekend will return so the starting line up will be closer to the XI who started against Yeovil. It's hard to argue that Lopata, Neal and Murphy replacing Coulson, Gard and Rush wouldn't make us more competitive.
We will however have to make at least one change from the Yeovil line up as Jason Demetriou is suspended for one game due to an accumulation of yellow cards, and this should mean a debut at right wing back for new signing Leon Davies. Whether we make any more signings before then, remains to be seen. Maybe Stan will reveal more at the supporters meeting on Wednesday evening.
So, usual rules apply, who would you pick to start and what do you predict the result to be?
Since the heady days of our 100% record in the league back in August, The Linnets have parted company with manager Ian Culverhouse and replaced him with Tommy Widdrington, 11 years after he left his role at Southend where he'd briefly served as Paul Sturrock's Assistant.
Widdrington's appointment has done little to improve their form, with his solitary win coming in his first game in charge against Nantwich in the FA Trophy, a competition they subsequently went out of, like blues, on Saturday when they lost on penalties to National League South Tonbridge Angels (a team that to me sound like they should be playing in the WSL!).
To be fair to Tommy, he's had a couple of tricky league games to start off with against Chesterfield and Notts County, and let's hope Friday's game is equally as difficult for him as those games were.
He's bolstered his squad by signing one of his sons, Theo, on loan from Havant & Waterlooville. If he signs his other son, Kai, then he could be dancing his way through the Blues defence as he was one of the professional dancers on Strictly this year!
Their form in the league has been pretty dismal - prior to their win at home to Dover in Culverhouse's penultimate league match, their previous victory was on the 2nd October and followed by a draw against Barnet and then 8 successive league defeats, so they're not exactly coming to us with any kind of form.
Last Saturday's Dagenham defeat aside, our form has been much better lately and one would hope that most of those who were injured/rested/cup-tied last weekend will return so the starting line up will be closer to the XI who started against Yeovil. It's hard to argue that Lopata, Neal and Murphy replacing Coulson, Gard and Rush wouldn't make us more competitive.
We will however have to make at least one change from the Yeovil line up as Jason Demetriou is suspended for one game due to an accumulation of yellow cards, and this should mean a debut at right wing back for new signing Leon Davies. Whether we make any more signings before then, remains to be seen. Maybe Stan will reveal more at the supporters meeting on Wednesday evening.
So, usual rules apply, who would you pick to start and what do you predict the result to be?
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