Boss Andy Sinton has pledged to play the Scrooge of AFC Telford United – by upping his players’ Christmas workload.

The Bucks entertain Blue Square Bet Premier leaders Wrexham on Boxing Day and then travel to the Racecourse for the return fixture on New Year’s Day.

And with such a stiff test in the offing, Sinton insists he will be making precious few allowances for the festive season as he plans his preparations.

“We were discussing the training programme on the way down to Braintree (ahead of Saturday’s 2-1 defeat) and many people might be thinking we’ll ease off because it’s Christmas,” he said.

“I can tell you we’ll be going the other way – not in a physical manner, not running the lads into the ground, but we’ll be doing more on the training ground. We’ll try and use the time that we have to its max.”

Sinton has stopped short of telling his players to report for duty on Christmas Day, though he does expect them to be careful what they eat and drink with such a big game 24 hours later.

But he believes that there could be a chance to put on extra daytime sessions this week as a number of his part-time players finish their ‘other’ jobs for Christmas.

Striker Andy Brown is a teacher and captain Shane Killock a classroom assistant – and they are just two who have temporarily got more time on their hands.

“We probably won’t be in Christmas Day but we’ll be in quite a bit over the next few days before the Wrexham game,” Sinton confirmed.

“We’ll be doing as much work as we can. We haven’t been able to get some of the lads in during the day but possibly when they finish work for the Christmas period we might.”

See also:

• AFC Telford boss Sinton fuming at costly decision
• Blog: AFC Telford need to see off the lesser teams
• Braintree Town 2 AFC Telford 1 – In pictures