St Albans City v Cambridge City

Saturday, December 17 – KO 3pm

Manager: Gary Roberts

Last season: 4th

Top scorer this year: Craig Hammond (12)

ST ALBANS City go in search of their first back-to-back league wins of the season when they welcome Cambridge City to Clarence Park this Saturday, in their last action before Christmas.

Season so far

Led by former St Albans City boss Gary Roberts, Cambridge made a solid start to the campaign with seven points from their first three games. Back-to-back defeats against Chesham and Frome Town thwarted their progress but the Lilywhites responded with three straight victories to get their promotion push back on track.

It has derailed somewhat in recent weeks however as a run of six games without victory has seen City slip to eighth in the Southern Premier Division table ahead of Saturday’s game.

Included in that dismal spell are defeats to strugglers Swindon Supermarine (3-1) and Evesham United, the latter at City’s Milton Road home.

In their most recent outing the Lilywhites were held to a 2-2 draw by Chesham.

Team vs Chesham: Barrett; Islam, Theobold, Hudson, Chaffey; Abbs, Cambridge �, Nightingale, Gould; Kelly, Yamfam.

We’ve Met Before - Cambridge City 4 St Albans City 0 (August 16, 2011)

The Saints will be gunning for revenge following a 4-0 drubbing at Milton Road back in August. After their excellent opening day win over Cirencester Town, St Albans made the journey to Cambridge in confident mood but they were blown away by a Cambridge City side who really should have scored more than the four they did.

From the moment Liam Nicell’s cross-cum-shot arched over the head of on-loan goalkeeper Kyle Merson the Saints were on the back foot and Luke Robins’ double late in the first half killed off any hopes St Albans had of rescuing a point.

The second half saw Cambridge City waste a plethora of golden chances which resulted in them adding just the one goal to their first half tally, an effort from Craig Hammond five minutes from time.

Team news

Sean Shields misses out for St Albans with the ankle ligament injury he sustained at Hitchin Town last Saturday while on-loan QPR full-back Michael Harriman serves his one match ban for the red card he received against Barwell. Youth team right-back Joe Zazzera has been called up to the senior squad as cover for Harriman.

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