Match Preview by Leon Higgins

After a mixed September that saw two victories, two defeats and a 2-2 draw against Bedford, Mark Bradshaw’s side will hope a busy league filled October can kick start Curzon’s campaign.

October which features trips to Marine and Macclesfield alongside home games against King’s Lynn (Rearranged from Saturday 11th October to Tuesday 28th October due to King’s Lynn’s FA Cup 4th qualifying round participation) and Peterborough Sports.

Curzon currently sit 16th in the league table on 10 points after nine matches, five off Radcliffe in the final play off position and three ahead of Oxford who occupy the final relegation position.

The Hoops come into this clash with one win in their last five games in all competitions. Defeats in the last three games have all come away from home with a 1-0 defeat at Scarborough last time out, 3-2 FA Cup second qualifying round loss at Westbury United after losing 2-1 at Buxton. Oxford’s two games prior to that came at the Group Stadium with a super impressive 5-0 against Alfreton after losing 5-1 to Radcliffe.

Head to Head:

Last season was the first time the two teams have met with the Nash winning both games, taking 6 points from the meetings. Their last meeting was back in January at the Group Stadium when The Nash claimed all 3 points following a dominating 5-0 win – with current Nash left-back Chi Eze featuring for The Hoops.

Curzon Ashton:

• September Nash player of the month Brad Holmes is the Curzon top goal scorer in the league so far with 4 goals.
• Only Bedford’s Tyrone Marsh (6), Kings Lynn Michael Gyasi (4), South Shields Stephan Walker (4) and Worksop’s Aaron Martin (4) have scored more home goals than Brad Holmes (3).
• Curzon have failed to win after failing behind so far this season with only 2 draws from 5 deficits.

Oxford City:

• Tom Scott has 4 assists this season which is the joint most in the league. Issac Westendorf also has 3 assists this season.
• Alfie Potter sits second on the disciplinary record table with (6 points this season) with one yellow and one straight red. Only Radcliffe’s Lois Maynard has more points (8).
• Along with King’s Lynn, Oxford have the most direct red cards this season (2).
• The Hoops have failed to pick up any points after falling behind.

Management Preview:

It’s an all around package of believing in yourself and that’s a difficult skill to achieve.

We want to go and be exciting but we’ve got to get that balance right of how open we are, how close we are to the opposition, how often we can win 50-50 battles with players, so we will be working as we always do in training next week to put it right, and there will be a lot of the lads hurting today, as I am, and we’ve got to go into next week and see if we can turn things around.

It’s a nice astroturf pitch, probably the best in the league but it’ll be a tough game, there’s no easy ones, so attitude and effort – we need to get them decisions better.

Match Information:

Admission: Buy tickets here