On paper, it’s the tallest of orders. With only one away win in the league all season, Enfield Town go into the first game of a hugely testing schedule on Tuesday against full-time opposition who rarely lose at home.
Only twice have Ebbsfleet United been beaten on their own patch and with two games a week between now and March 24, which is currently our first free Tuesday, the energy-sapping task facing Gavin Macpherson’s men cannot be overstated.
It goes without saying that part-time clubs have far less time to prepare for a constant Tuesday-Saturday-Tuesday programme. But by the same token, as Gavin stated recently, going on a run can work in your favour.
“It could be our saviour or it could kill us,” Gav admitted. “When you only train twice a week, clearly this sort of schedule makes life much harder. I trust my squad but if we have an injury crisis, we’ll be in trouble. It’s obviously more of an advantage if you’re full-time. There’s a reason why these teams generally flourish. We clearly need to find some form but let’s see where we are after a few of these games. A lot of them are at home.”
But not tomorrow. Town may have won the corresponding fixture against Ebbsfleet 3-1 back in October but no-one is under any illusions.
“If I’m not mistaken they have the best home record in the division and our away record isn’t good,” said Gav. “That suggests a tough day at the office and that we’re going to have to put everything together to come away with a result. But football doesn’t always work like that.”
Town’s task hasn’t been made any easier with Hampton and Richmond and Farnborough both snatching late draws at the death last Saturday. “Listen these teams are scrapping hard,” said Gavin. “As it stands, we have to try and match that.”
Even if things don’t go our way at Ebbsfleet, said Gav, there is room for optimism.
“Right now we’re focussing hard on Ebbsfleet but there’s a run of games thereafter where people might think we should pick up points so whatever happens tomorrow, after that we’ll be focussing on those.”
AW