Kidderminster Harriers V Southport, Saturday 27th January 2018 – 3pm.
Kevin Davies says his side are full of confidence going into Saturday’s away fixture against Kidderminster Harriers, with Southport looking for their 3rd consecutive win and their 4th of 2018.
Kidderminster have already taken three points from Southport earlier in the season with a 3-0 victory at the Merseyrail Community Stadium, and come into the game on the back of a comprehensive 4-0 victory of FCUM midweek.
Ahead of the game Davies said: “You look at Kidderminster’s home form and they’ve only lost once, against Chorley on the opening day, but since then we’ve seen how strong they are at home scoring goals.”
“They’re averaging 2 or 3 goals a game I think, so we know its going to be a tough test for us. But we’re going there full of confidence ourselves, and we want to go and cause them problems.”
“They’re a very different team at home to the one I saw playing away at Leamington. We’ve watched games recently where they do get behind the ball away from home and they do pick up a lot of draws because they’re hard to beat. It’s a totally different style playing at home.”
“They have lots of attacking minded players so it’ll be a real test for us as a team, but there’s a real confidence around the club. Looking at the game plan, looking at everything, we feel we can get at them. They need to worry about us as well because we are playing well at the moment. It should be a really good game.”
Southport’s second half performance against Stockport Country secured a third win from four in 2018, and a second consecutive home victory.
On Saturday’s victory Davies said:
“The second half performance was one of the best I’ve seen really. We stood off them for the first 20 minutes or so and let them boss the game. We still created a few opportunities towards the end of the first half, but the team really took the messages on board at half time.”
“We wanted them to start competing and go and take the game to Stockport. We always felt that we could potentially win late on, with Stockport having played in midweek. We kept up the workrate for the full 90 minutes and our fitness levels look like they’re improving every week.”
“We had training on Thursday, we watched clips of the second half and the way we started the game. Coming from behind against a really strong team in this league was a real positive. Everyone rose to the challenge. There was a great feeling around the club afterwards afterwards and the lads really deserved it. Jon and I have been watching their appetite, the attitude that they’re showing towards training. There’s a flexibility about the team and the squad now and its good to see it all coming together.”
When considering individual performances during the win over Stockport County, the manager pointed to a complete team performance:
“The team’s performance as a whole was the most pleasing thing. Its difficult to pick anybody out because I thought overall we reacted well.”
“Elliot Osbourne came into the game against a team that he’s played for, a team that were interested in getting him as well so, it was a big game for him. He’s a young player so we need to remember that. It was a difficult game to come into, a new team and a new environment but he took it in his stride as we thought he would.”
“David Morgan and David Lynch are getting better with every game. Obviously Jack Sampson was outstanding. It was a big, all-round strikers performance that had everything I would want from him. He’s adding goals to his game which we challenged him to do. He’s getting in goal-scoring positions. He’s out-muscling defenders, his link up play, the strength he’s showing, his all-round play was outstanding. Hes obviously pleased to get the goals. His ratio is about 1-in-3 now and it was nice to get both strikers scoring for two games in a row.”
Southport also secured the services of Port Vale’s Graham Kelly on Friday afternoon, with the left-back eligible for selection against Kidderminster.
“Graham’s a player that Jon knows really well. Our scouts have watched him play for Bradford Park Avenue so we’ve had a look at him through the week and he’s been very impressive. We feel he adds to the squad.
The squad’s growing all the time but we’re looking for players with the right attitudes and the right mentalities to add to the squad.
He can play centre-half as well. Hes keen, hes willing, he wants to be part of the club and we’re really pleased that hes decided to join us.”
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