Histon manager David Livermore

Stutes could adapt their game for Gainsborough clash

HISTON boss David Livermore says he has some difficult decisions to make this week ahead of Saturday’s away trip to Gainsborough Trinity.

The Stutes come into the game off the back of a well earned 4-3 win at home to Gloucester City in which there were a number of fine performances throughout the side.

Livermore must now decide whether keep his winning side together or to adjust in order to thwart the possible dangers of a strong Trinity side.

“It’s always difficult because we know a bit about their game as we played them a few weeks back. Their main strength is just dropping balls into their front men so you could argue that we maybe put an extra body in front of the back four to try and counteract that, or we continue with the same team that got us a great result.

“You could throw arguments back and forward about how to play, you could take Omar Riza out of the position off Dan Holman and put an extra body in front of the back four, you could say that could counteract what they do because they like to drop balls in but then obviously you’re going to lose some attacking impetus. It’s important that we make the right decision on that one, you can change your formation to strengthen in one area but you could lose a bit of strength in another so we’ll have to get it right.

“There’s an argument that if you want to counteract their side, you could talk about Paleyo (Gomez-Pico), at 6ft 2 could be an option to have some more height in the side. There’s loads of ways we can deal with it. Do the back four drop off and let Jim Stevenson challenge for the ball which we’ve done on a few occasions?

Histon’s last meeting with Trinity ended in a 1-1 draw at the Glassworld Stadium and Livermore believes that his side will need to combine good football with a competitive edge if they are to get a victory this time around.

“It’s important that we get them two elements together at the same time we didn’t do that so well at the weekend, we played some fantastic football but we didn’t compete as well as I would have liked us to have done,” he said.

“They’re quite a big side, quite physical, direct and like I say, they like to drop ball into the front man. They like to drop balls in with real quality and try and get runners off the front guy so we’ll have to guard against that.

“We must make sure that we set up right for set-pieces against them, especially long throws and the full backs are going to have to do a good job of stopping crosses, get tight in wide areas and not allow them to get good quality balls in.

“Whatever happens we’ll be putting a team out there again to try and win another football match.”

Zac Mills is still missing with a knee problem, but Dan Fitzsimmons is back after suspension and is likely to slot in at left-back, with Harry Hawkins dropping to the bench.