Match Preview: Salts FC Reserves

Saturday presents another tough test for Kris Macdonald’s side as they travel over to Bradford to face former league leaders Salts AFC Reserves at Salts Sports Ground. The match has a 2pm kick-off time and looking at the weather app, it seems that it will be thick cloud and light showers throughout!

With the weather set to take a turn for the worse in the next few days, please keep an eye on our Social Media channels for updates to the status of this, and other games involving Kirk Deighton Rangers.

It’s become a bit of an epic tussle between our hosts and Boroughbridge Reserves at the summit of the table with neither team giving an inch, so it would be a perfect time for us to not only throw the proverbial spanner in the works, but also climb further back into the promotion mix with a good three points. However, it won’t be an easy task, but if there is one thing that we like more than anything at KDR, it’s a challenge!

At present, Salts reside in second place with 37 points from a possible total of 42. At home, they have collected 16 of these with five wins, one draw and no defeats. They have the lowest amount of home goals scored in the top half of the table with 21 (avg. 3.5 goals scored per home game), however, they also can boast the lowest amount of goals conceded at home throughout the whole league with just a stingy four being let in (avg. 0.7 goals conceded per home game!)

A look at the FA website stat page for our league shows that the Rangers defence will have to keep an eye on Nathan Hartley, who has 15 goals (13 in the league) already. Just to also add to their workload as well, the backline will also be trying to stop both Matthew Bailey and Oliver Hume who have 14 and 13 goals respectively!

A win for us would (with other results going our way) see us jump over Otley Town Reserves and into 4th place. A defeat would in all reality (unless we suffer a very heavy one or Altofts go goal crazy in their match against Howden Clough Reserves) see us stay in 5th position.

One player who will be missing from the hosts rota is Niall Gott. Gott is midway through serving a four-match suspension and won’t be able to play until the beginning of February. Macdonald has no such worries in this department but will be casting his eye over several players who have picked up knocks within the last few weeks.

Taking charge of this game is Mr Alan Clough. Mr Clough has been in charge for ten games so far and in that time has issued five yellow cards and no red ones.

If you would like to watch the game, the address that you will need is Salts Sports Ground, Bradford, BD18 3LA (information taken from the FA website)

League Form (over last five matches)

Salts W W W L W

Rangers W W L L D

Leading League Goalscorers

Salts Nathan Hartley 13 goals

Rangers Vito D’Avanzo 6 goals

Our Reserves are proudly sponsored by:

Aquascapes & landscaping Ltd