Match Preview: West Didsbury & Chorlton Reserves VS Stretford Paddock

Stretford Paddock are on a bad run. After such a promising start, Paddock have conceded 10 goals in their last 3 fixtures and more disappointingly, only come away with 1 point from those 3 matches. A fresh challenge awaits them with a fixture on Saturday against West Didsbury and Chorlton Reserves. There is no doubt that Ste and Bill are desperate for their Paddock side to bounce-back – it needs to come sooner rather later.

Team News

Paddock are without 9 first team squad members this weekend – a true reflection of the reality of Saturday League football. Players are human and human’s sometimes have other commitments. One of the 9 uncertain to play this weekend is Kieron Molloy. With minimal improvement to the state of his foot, he has no choice but to sit out of the starting 11 this week. Whether he will make it to the bench or not, we will have to wait and see.

Due to a lack of defenders available, the versatile and physical Kayode Adewale will be filling in at centre back. Despite the loss on Saturday, Kayode showed his physical presence in midfield as well his technical prowess – skills which can certainly be translated over to centre half.

On a more positive note, the squad will be seeing the return of Cam Watters into the middle of the park. Cameron has not played since the first day of the season against Holmes Chapel. Along with his good ball skills and work rate, Cam will be hoping to bring some good luck with him on Saturday – Paddock scored 7 goals last time he played!

There might also be a debut this weekend. Ex Getafe academy lad, David Solomé will feature on the bench. David’s key attribute, his long range shooting, might well be something that the manager will turn to late in the game.

This week at Paddock

After another disappointing result, Paddock boss, Stephen Howson, has been impressed with the way in which his players have responded on the training pitch. Ste told us “Trainings been really good this week. The attitude and application of the players have been fantastic.”

With possible questions over some of the players fitness, this week at training, Stretford Paddock were challenged with the bleep test. Aftab Jan came out on top with an impressive score of 14.3, but what was more impressive was the camaraderie amongst his team mates. Ste described the scene: “Some of the players who went out early [of the bleep test] got back in to help Aftab keep going.”

Our opposition

This weekend, we will be hosted by West Didsbury and Chorlton Reserves at Hyde United Football Club.

The Reserve side have had a respectable start to this season bagging two wins from three games. What is interesting is that both wins have come against sides familiar to Stretford Paddock. Like Paddock, West Didsbury and Chorlton Reserves comfortably beat Holmes Chapel whereas the Reserves easily dispatched Mersey Valley, unlike Paddock who could only manage a draw.

Finishing 5th last season, this weeks opponents will certainly give Paddock another challenging fixture. Ste’s boys have now however, had time to adapt to life in the Cheshire League. They know that games can be physical, technical or a mix of both. This will hopefully help them going deeper into the season and possibly even get them back to winning ways this weekend.

After last week’s loss, we travel away once again in the 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲 this time up it’s 𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗗𝗶𝗱𝘀𝗯𝘂𝗿𝘆 & 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗹𝘁𝗼𝗻

📅 Sat 20th Aug
📍 Ewan Fields, Walker Lane; Hyde; Cheshire; SK14 5PL
⏰ 2PM
🎫 FREE#UpThePaddock pic.twitter.com/6ffbvpRtHt

— Stretford Paddock FC (@SPaddockFC) August 19, 2022