For the 3rd and hopefully final time this season, here’s a look ahead to Spartans National League North clash against Scunthorpe United at Croft Park.
Having already gone into a bit of depth on Scunny’s team twice already, I really can’t be arsed to do it again. So for a breakdown on some of their big hitters, check out the previous match preview here.
According to manager Jimmy Dean in his interview yesterday, midfielder Jacob Butterfield is 50/50 for todays game due to an illness. Jason Law and Cal Roberts look to be missing the game as they await the results of some scans they’ve recently recently had. Left back Tyler Denton is also suspended for tonight.
As for Scunthorpe’s form, like ours it could be much better. They lost at home to league leaders Tamworth last Tuesday night which was a bit of a blow to their title hopes. They did bounce back on Saturday with a 2-0 win over Rushall Olympic though going off Dean’s interview yesterday, it wasn’t exactly their best performance of the season. He seems keen to start on the front foot and have a go tonight given our form. On the road this season Scunny have been a bit suspect, losing to the likes of Curzon Ashton, Brackley (twice), Chester and Kings Lynn.
Forward Danny Whitehall will be looking to get back to form as well, having missed most of January due to suspension. He hasn’t scored since the Boxing Day win over Farlsey Celtic. That being said, he’s still the league’s 3rd top scorer with 14 goals in 27 games.
For Spartans, Alex Mitchell and JJ O’Donnell are of course the long term absentees and they’ll be joined by Michael Liddle for now after he pulled up last week. JJ Hooper missed Saturday’s trip to Hereford and it’s unknown if he’ll feature tonight. New signing James Cook apparently went off on Saturday after he took a knock, though the lads who went down said he didn’t look that bad.
Harry Arnison retuned to bench on Saturday and will likely be in contention for some game time tonight. Joe Oliver may also make the bench as well after his recent injury. He’s been a miss in recent weeks and maybe needed with Lid’s out.
With segregation in place Spartans fans will only be able to access the ground via the Kingsway entrance, which typically only has the 1 cash turnstile on and usually develops a canny size que when it comes to the bigger games so as ever, we’d recommend purchasing tickets in advance here.
Any Scunny fans reading who are making the trip up and need a bit of guide to Croft Park, pubs and scran, look no further.
Both sides of the ground will have separate food vans in, though with it being a midweek game shy’s pies won’t be available in the club unfortunately. With the crowd expected to exceed 1,000, the clubhouse will likely get fairly busy beforehand as well.
The club shop will be open again as from 6:30pm and then again after the match. Home and Away shirts are seemingly in low stock at the moment, though they do have plenty of Errea training gear in.
Scunny are naturally heavy favourites for tonight given our form and their position in the league. It’s hard to disagree with that in all honesty however, with the visitors a bit patchy on the road this season and possibly missing a few attacking threats, we may just sneak a result.