Match Preview: Cirencester Town v Basingstoke Town Saturday 21st December 2019

Match Preview: Bet Victor Division One South

Cirencester Town v Basingstoke Town

When: Saturday 21st December 2019 Kick-off 3pm

Where: The Corinium Stadium, Kings Hill Lane, Cirencester, GLOS. GL7 1HS

Cirencester Town (Nickname – The Centurions ), Average 2019-20 Home Attendance 171

Ok we are back to one of the few places we have won away from Winchester this season, as we left the Corinium stadium 2-3 winners in the FA Trophy. A headed goal by Ben Cook, an Andrady finish and a Zach Robinson winner, sent us home from Gloucestershire with £2,250 in our pockets.

Cirencester Town, are now Managed by John Brough who took over earlier this month. Since his arrival, the Centurions have gone on a three-game winning streak in the league, that included a 0-3 win at highly rated Slimbridge and home wins against Barnstaple & AFC Totton.

Prior to that they had lost three games on the bounce and thus a reason for the club to act.

The three wins however, have pushed them upto eighth place in the table, and just points off the playoff places. Their current record sits at PLD 16 WON 7 DRAWN 1 LOST 8 GF 30 GA 26 PTS 22.

Although they have scored 30 goals, like your Stoke side, those goals have been shared around a number of players, and most of their goals have come from midfielder players John Dennis (4), Jack Freeman (3) and Michael Pook (3). The forward line is led by Alan Griffin (the younger brother of outgoing manager Charlie Griffin) who has 3 goals and Toumani Sidibe with 4 goals. Mind you three of Sidibe’s goals came in one match.

Unlike the recent teams we have played, apart from 3 or 4 experienced players, they have a younger team similar to us.

Cirencester will clearly look at our away record and be expecting three points this Saturday.

As for Basingstoke, since coming away from last weekend’s loss at Evesham, we now have the understanding that with ten minutes to go, we could and should have been level, as what seemed at the time, a disallowed goal, was indeed a perfectly good goal, and would have brought us level. What would have happened from then, we will never know, but in the record books it goes down as another loss.

This was a loss where we missed two or three chances at critical times, and that simply can’t continue if we are to rise up the table.

So looking at this Saturday, we face another team on the up and will need to be at our best to get anything from the game.

To be honest, our style of play, fast attacking breaks may well be more suited to Cirencester’s 3G surface, than on bumpy muddy pitches, that we face over the coming months. Therefore, we should look forward to seeing our young attacking midfield players such as Jordan Edwards, Claudio Herbert, Harrison Cliff & Riccardo Andrady on this surface.

With that, the surface may not be suited to our defence which at times has shown a lack of pace at the back, so it’s likely Manager Dan Brownlie will try and set-up a defence to protect that sort of attack. Assuming that Both Alfie Saunders and Aaron Kuhl are both available, then both will be slotted in to fit into Dan’s defensive plans.

Our league record now stands at PLD 16 Won 3 Drawn 3 Lost 10 GF 21 GA 39 with 12pts

Up front both Ben Wright & Bradley Wilson will lead the line as we move into an important Christmas and New Year period and goals from them weekend are much needed.

Injury-wise I am not aware of any new concerns, so expect those who missed last weeks game through illness will be in contention this Saturday.

At least we head into this fixture with the knowledge that the pitch will be fast, and also flat and we need to get ahead of Cirencester like we did in the FA Trophy, back in October.

Match Preview by Martin French..

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