BAKER LOOKING TO BOUNCE BACK AGAINST GROVE

Neil Baker's side suffered a surprise 3-1 home defeat to Trafford on Saturday, only their second defeat since late November - the other was against Kidsgrove!

Grove triumphed 2-1 at the Novus Stadium back in January thanks to a late goal from Kyle Diskin making it no wins in eight games spanning four years for Blues against their local rivals.

Since then Grove's league form has been a bit patchy with a win, two draws and two defeats prior to Saturday's 5-0 rout of title-chasing Runcorn Linnets.

Anthony Malbon scored a hat-trick in that game and Leek fans will be more than aware of his threat as he has been a regular scorer against the Blues in Kidsgrove;s recent good derby run.

Baker (pictured) has fielded a largely unchanged side recently, but Saturday's result will give him food for thought with his selection with the Blues boss commenting after the Trafford game:

"Normally I could tell you my team now, but I can't at the moment, I'll give it some thought, talk to the staff and hopefully we'll come up with the right formula for Tuesday."

Reflecting on the Trafford game Baker added, "I was more disappointed with the result than the performance, I thought we played better than we did last week without looking particularly dangerous.

"I said to the players we've had a fantastic run and you are going to get a blip and you are going to get beat along the way and it's how you recover from it."

"I'm not saying our attitude wasn't right, I think it was from the word go, but there are going to be a lot more twists and turns yet."

"Hopefully on Tuesday, we can bounce back and put in a better performance than we did at Kidsgrove and come away with the points, but who knows - it will be a tough game."

Updated 23:10 - 29 Aug 2019 by Steve Reynolds