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Halesowen face a goal mad Sudbury side, looking for six straight wins for the first time since September 2022
Written by Ben Ditchfield
Following a 5-0 thrashing of Lowestoft Town midweek, the Yeltz return to action at The Grove with the visit of Sudbury, looking to build on the last gasp winner at home to Spalding United last weekend.
Halesowen boss Russ Penn, spoke about not wanting his side to get ahead of themselves after their recent form stating, "I said a few weeks ago that we had three tough league games coming up, two of them have been ticked off, but Sudbury are no pushovers, nobody that comes to us are. They come to our ground and like what they see, pitch is lovely, big crowd and they will want to upset our current mood and get a result for themselves, we just need to be better than them on the day."
He did bemoan about the lack of squad depth declaring, "We have 16 matches or so between now and January 4th and we only have 15 players, so we need everyone one we can, if we feel we need too add when we can, we will but with a player like Nick Clayton-Phillips coming back into the side, we should be ok for now."
The Yeltz boss is currently in the best period as the clubs coach since taking charge back in February, with Halesowen's goal crazy number 9, Kieren Donnelly looking to score for a sixth successive league game as he hunts down the record that Ben Haseley has of eight.
The side are currently second in the league and have the chance to go top with a win, if Kettering Town fail to get a win against 4th placed Redditch United.
The two sides have met twice in recent memory, with Halesowen comfortably beating The Suds 4-1 in their last visit to the Black Country, with the side from Suffolk claiming a 2-2 draw against Halesowen back in February.
The visitors are coming to the heart of the West Midlands, 10th in the table with just one defeat in five, having scored a total of 25 goals this campaign, only bettered by Bedford Town's 26.
24 year old Joe Neal and Josh Allen, the biggest goal threats The Yellows have in their arsenal. Allen scored the brace against what was then Paul Smith's Halesowen back in February, and currently has five goals to his name this campaign.
Joe Neal has done one better, having knocked in six goals this season with five of them coming since the start of September, only Kieren Donnelly and Lowestoft's Harvey Sayer have scored more in that time period.
It hasnt always been plain sailing for Sudbury, following on from their promotion in 2023, the side finished last season in the relegation spots, only to find a reprieve of relegation due to the demise of Coalville Town and Nuneaton Borough.
Suds boss Marc Abbott has been in charge since June 2023, following the resignation of their promotion winning boss Rick Andrews. Abbott's side have enjoyed a much better start to their 2024/25 campaign, having recorded seven wins in 18, knocking in 34 goals along the way.
A goalscoring feat that took seven games longer to muster last season and a winning feat that took them until News Years Day to match, in a 2023/24 season that saw them take 17 matches until they could put multiple wins on the board.
A fast start to the match is key yet again to Russ Penn's sides chances of finding success, with nine of the 14 league games having seen his side score the first goal in a game. That Mixed in with the away side's terrible record when behind at the break, that saw their last win come 18 months ago, having now gone 22 games without one.