Improving Market Drayton Town looking for more wins to strengthen consistency
Boss Dan Dawson believes a hunt for more consistency will help Market Drayton Town crack their expected target of the league's top half.
Improving Drayton have found some good form in the North West Counties First Division South of late and following a free weekend travel to Wolverhampton Casuals on Saturday.
The Gingerbread Men have lost just once in the last seven league games and have moved from the bottom three towards the middle of the pack. They signed off for action at the end of last month with back-to-back wins against Wolverhampton Sporting and fourth-placed Barnton.
"It's been a lovely run," Dawson said. "It's nice to start seeing it paid dividends now and for the squad be where we need it to be. The return of Sam Finney was massive for us.
"It's what we've been saying for a long time. It's the consistency of the playing side this year. We've had eight or nine different centre-half partnerships.
"It's the consistency of people not being away, not being injured, getting our best side out and building those relationships. The team that beat Barnton had one player over the age of 30 with our captain Nick Woods missing, the next oldest player was 25."
It was a difficult start to Dawson's second season at the helm at Greenfields but the boss feels things have started to come together.
The squad spent last Saturday in Manchester on an early Christmas do to take advantage of the schedule. Saturday's hosts Casuals were 15th ahead of a trip to Telford Town on Wednesday night.
"Listen, mid-table should be the minimum this season," he added. "That's what this team should achieve, if we're being honest with ourselves and the quality we've got there.
"We'd be disappointed if there was anything other than that. That's why we've always felt confident. The chairman was always 100 per cent confident and has backed us to that tune. He's now seen the dividends of that, which is great.
"We're not trying to get ahead of ourselves. We're trying to build that squad and that continuity and that consistency until we can put together more back-to-back wins now. If we can then get to three wins, four wins back-to-back, that's the bigger picture stuff."
