CLEE Hill United boss Wayne Whitbread hopes not to see a few familiar faces in the visitors’ line-up as his side aim to keep their Herefordshire Premier title bandwagon rolling this weekend.

A fine 5-0 win at Shobdon last Saturday – courtesy of Josh Carpenter’s early strike, a Craig Breakwell penalty and goals from Stevie Preece, Ryan Clarke and Chris Breakwell – kept Hill top.

Now they host Hereford Pegasus Reserves, whose first team, which play in the Hellenic League, thrashed United 10-0 in the Herefordshire County Cup quarter-finals last month.

“I will be keeping an eye on whether the Pegasus first team game is on or off on Saturday,” admitted Whitbread, “because if it’s off the reserves might bring a few first team players in.

“Their first team were as good a team as I have seen. We didn’t even play badly – I don’t know what the score would have been if we had put in a really bad performance!

“We have picked up since then – perhaps it was a wake-up call and has worked in our favour. But hopefully it will be the reserve team we are playing, that will be more of a level contest!”

Ludlow Colts could do Hill a favour as they visit second-placed Malvern Town Reserves but joint boss Mark Tonkinson admits they will need a better performance than last weekend.

Colts drew 2-2 with basement side Bartestree, just days after a really encouraging display in defeat at higher-league Wellington in the county cup last eight, where a 4-0 score flattered the hosts.

“We had nine players out against Bartestree but we were poor,” said Tonkinson. “We will have to be on the ball at Malvern but we will have a lot of those players back.”

In Division One, second-placed Ludlow Colts Reserves drew 2-2 at lowly Civil Service and Woofferton’s Division Two struggles continued with a 6-1 thrashing by Bromyard Downs.