It’s ridiculously early to talk about a six-pointer but Enfield Town go into Saturday’s clash with Chippenham knowing that a first home win of the season would open up a four-point gap above their opponents.
With Town not having won at home and the Bluebirds – one point behind us — yet to be victorious on the road, something has to give in what is the first of three games in a week for us in all competitions.
Last Saturday’s progress in the FA Cup gave everyone a boost but we need to start scoring goals in league games to put more points on the board.
“I realise why some people look at the league table and think this might be one of our easier games but this is National League South,” said Gavin Macpherson. “I would never ever look at a team anywhere in our division and make any kind of judgement. Last season at this early stage there were teams near the top who finished way down. I’m looking at Chippenham in isolation and recognise what they do really well. They switch their play well so we’ll have to be cute about what we do.”
“Last Saturday in the cup will have done us the power of good but we still need to take more of our ratio of chances. I’ve said many times that we’ve not got as many points as we should have.”
In terms of personnel, Mickey Parcell has just become a proud father and missed training on Thursday, Henry Hawkins and Bailey Brown are both vying to be in contention as they continue trying to shake off injury while Ollie Knight is unavailable. But the rest of the squad seem fit and ready to go. There will be the usual excellent commentary available via the website for those unable to attend.
Next Saturday of course is the small matter of a mouth-watering FA Cup 3rd qualifying round match against high-flying Step 3 Quorn AFC but before that, on Tuesday, we entertain Cockfosters in the London Senior Cup when it is anticipated that a number of fringe players and academy boys will be bloodied.
“I don’t want to make light of any competition and naturally the supporters want to win every game,” said Gavin. “But truthfully you do have a bit of an ulterior motive in respect of bringing in some really talented academy players for match-day experience.”
“It’s really important because you get to see how they function in a very different environment. Plus how they fare against adult opposition. Cockfosters will be no push-overs and it’s important to see where some of our younger lads are. But of course we won’t just throw the academy out there. It will include a few of the first-team squad to try to glue it together.”
Could Jack Bates have rejoined the club by then? “It’s no secret Batesy has been training with us but he’s coming back from a couple of injuries,” explained Gav. “He obviously knows most of the lads but he hasn’t had any football whatsoever so we’re treating it one day at a time.”
AW