Macclesfield Town v County ... a brief preview

By -

TRIP TO MOSS ROSE

Other demands on my time make this preview a little shorter than usual, as County visit Cheshire neighbours, or should that be County Old Boys, Macclesfield Town. The team from the Moss Rose lost one of their former County players in the summer when Adriano Moke opted to switch to Wrexham for 2015-16. However, they gained Kieron Dennis on a season long loan from the Hatters. As you'll see from the form summary below, he is yet to score for Macclesfield this season, but then again this also applies to all his team-mates.

IN THE PAST

It's only four months since we visited Macc, as County lost out by a narrow margin to the Silkmen in the Cheshire Senior Cup Semi-Final. The County line-up, over half of whom have now left the club, was: Ian Ormson, Wes Benjamin (Scott Duxbury), Mark Lees, Connor Hancock (Greg Wilkinson),Stephen O'Halloran, Matthew Todd, Tunji Moses, Charlie Russell, Bobby Lofthouse (Danny Glover), Jack Ryan, Chris Sharp.
Read All Things Stockport County's report if you want to revisit that night

Macclesfield went on to beat Jim Gannon's Northwich Victoria side in the final. This probably proved no real compensation for the fact that they missed out on the National League promotion play-offs by just 1 place.

PLAYING CONNECTIONS

As for the County old-boys there are three ex-Hatters still on the books at Macclesfield. At full-back they have Andy Halls, in midfield is club captain Paul Turnbull (pictured right courtesy of SCAN),County's youngest player when he made his debut in his first spell at EP, and up front (or in the other full-back position) is whole-hearted player Danny Rowe, Tommy's brother not the AFC Fylde player. If we drop below the players with competitive first team appearances you can also add goalkeeper Richie Branagan, who wore County colours as a pre-season trialist a few years ago.

FORM

A quick run-down of Macc's pre-season result starting with the most recent. On Wednesday they lost by the narrowest of margins to league 1 side Bury. In this game yet another former County man, Danny Whitehead (pictured right courtesy of SCAN), was on trial so the striker who was sold to West Ham United might face County for the first time since he left, if John Askey decides to take another look at him.

Last Saturday Macclesfield had the same result as County, a 0-0 draw at home. In their case the vu=visitors were another League 1 side in Rochdale.

Tuesday 14th saw Macc somewhat surprisingly trailing 2-0 at Nantwich Town at half time, despite starting with several senior players. For the second half they put out a line-up that can only be described as a bunch of relative strangers, and went on to lose 3-0. The team that commenced the second 45 minutes consisted of 4 named players and 7 trialists. This game followed on from an equally disappointing result, a 0-0 at Kidsgrove Athletic, albeit in their opening outing of the season.

Given the significant use of trialists so far, I think you can be fairly sure that the list of names below will be supplanted by a few men with no-name when the teams meet on Friday.

NamePos
Richie Branagan G
Dan Cowan D
Arthur Gnahoua F
Andy Halls FB
George Pilkington CD
Neil Byrne CD
Raynes-Brown D
Curtis Haynes-Brown LB
Paul Lewis M
Paul Turnbull M
Danny Whitaker M
Tony Diagne M
Danny Rowe W
Theo Bailey-Jones W
Chris Holroyd F
Danny Whitehead F
Jack Sampson F
Kristian Dennis F


Ian Watts

Comments

Post a Comment

Top Posts

Simply Disgraceful !

By -
Simply Disgraceful ! This day will rank in infamy    with some of the darkest in our Club`s history- the owners of Stockport County have sacked Jim Gannon…..a dreadful decision......... totally bereft of merit, and one heralded by a shamefully inadequate announcement, as insulting to County fans as it is to Jim. Champions under Jim in our last completed season, fourth in the league after as impressive a win as any Club Chair could wish to witness from his team on Tuesday, despite the interrupted nature of the current season, and clearly playing well, so this smacks of something other than prudence or good decision making and as for being rational and fair………….. Sadly the Club`s owners rather added to the anger their foolish decision has already triggered, by stating that the decision was not results based, but based on `culture`.   Jim is a proven quality Manager , who knows what it takes to make County tick, has done so many times in the past, and   has forgotten more about Co
Read more

Wrexham 1 Stockport County 2 ( Vanarama National League) 31 August 2019

By -
Image
“Where`s the goals gonna come from”-is a familiar refrain from those wanting County to ship in a new striker every other week, and County once again fully answered that one with “ from almost everywhere” as goals from defenders Sam Minihan and Ash Palmer secured all the points at the Racecourse Ground today against Wrexham. A 2-0 County lead at half time seemed to signal a rout, but Wrexham fought well upon the re-start and made a real match of it , albeit that an imperious display by County`s superb back line limited them largely to shots from distance. The defensive display from JG`s boys, in the second 45 minutes, if somewhat hard on the nerves, was again excellent , but a late goal to the Welshmen made the last few minutes tenser than perhaps they should have been. It all ended well however, as ,   with Festus Arthur on in place of Bell ,for his longest stretch of on the park minutes so far, and Mulhern on for Turnbull, marshalled by Keano and Palmer, the
Read more

Notts County 2 Stockport County 1 ( Vanarama National League) Saturday 23 October 2021

By -
Image
        Perhaps expectations were a touch excessive, after all most visits to Meadow Lane usually result in a stiff test from a home side hell bent on victory. Today was no exception to this as County were outplayed for 94 and a half minutes of the 96 played, by a Notts County side drilled to do the basics correctly, and doing just that. Almost all their passes, no matter the situation, inevitably found a man in a black and white shirt who knew thereafter precisely what they should do with it, whereas if County had no shortage of possession at times, they appeared to be largely lacking a basic pattern to work to that went beyond the sideways pass, and the occasional long ball from Rooney. This resulted in Simon Rusk`s side trailing 2-0 two minutes into four added minutes, when unaccountably the previously immaculately drilled home back line pressed the panic button resulting in a County penalty ( 1-2) and a welter of frenzied County attacks and corners, but it stayed the same sco
Read more