By Ben Lightfoot
Blyth Spartans return to action on Saturday as they travel to Meadow Park to face Gloucester City.
The Spartans suffered a late defeat to Scarborough Athletic last time out as an 89th-minute winner from Alex Wiles secured The Seadogs a 3-2 victory.
TICKET INFORMATION
All ticket information for Saturday’s fixture can be viewed here.
TEAM NEWS
Nathan Buddle, Lewis McNall, Alex Nicholson and Michael Liddle remain out injured, as do Rhys Evans and Michael Richardson. However Jack Bodenham is set to return.
OPPOSITION
The Tigers are unbeaten in their last four league games, winning 2-0 against Hereford last time out and drawing the other three fixtures.
Steve King’s side are eyeing the playoff places in the National League North, sitting eighth in the table, just one point behind seventh-place Chorley.
WHAT WE’RE SAYING
After a 3-2 defeat on the road at Flamingo Land Stadium, Graham Fenton said: “I’m massively disappointed. Come away from home and scored two goals with the chance to maybe score more as well.
“Getting beat 3-2, the manner of the goals against is the biggest disappointment, we scored two tremendous goals, a fantastic free kick, great switch of a throw-in to the other side, great bit of link play by Cedric and a great finish of Issac.
“And then we gift three goals away, the second phase of a set-piece we switch off, next one we let them in behind us far too easily and cross into the box and the lad seems to have about five seconds on his own to finish and then the last goal is we’ve just talked about inside there, they shoot and follow in and score, we shot at the other end, don’t follow in and don’t score and that’s the difference between the two teams.”
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
Following a 2-0 win over rivals Hereford, Steven King said: “We’ve been working towards this, to be honest. The last three games all draws, I think we deserved to win two of those.
“I thought today was manful. We defended brilliantly, apart from one or two chances they had, I felt we thoroughly deserved the win and it could’ve been 3-0 at halftime, Dom was running riot down that right-hand side.”
LAST TIME WE MET
At Croft Park back in August, Blyth picked up their first win of the season after a 2-0 win thanks to goals from Lewis McNall and Jordan Hickey.
However, at Meadow Park last season, the points were split as the game finished 2-2 after JJ O’Donnell rescued a point for the Spartans in the 93rd minute.
MEDIA COVERAGE
Unfortunately there’ll be no Blyth Live, however you can follow the game via our social media platforms.