'Look upwards, not downwards' - Kevin Wilkin delivers message to Telford players ahead of return to league action

The Bucks enjoyed a solid start to the National League North campaign, and currently sit 15th on 32 points, just four points off the play-off places and 10 clear of the relegation zone.

And ahead of this afternoon's trip to Curzon Ashton, the Telford boss called for his players to focus on closing the gap between themselves and the teams above them, rather than looking over their shoulder.

"Everything is definitely still up for grabs  for us, and I'm sure a lot of other teams will be looking at it in a similar way," Wilkin said. "Against Curzon on Saturday we know that we can move above them with a win, and they'll be looking at it thinking they can give themselves a bit of a cushion over us and the rest of the (play-off) contenders.

"We're trying to instil that mentality now that we want to look upwards and not downwards. Clearly there's still a lot of work to do and we need to keep winning games, but it is really refreshing that we can feel the belief building in the squad and we're changing that mentality throughout the whole club.

"We know things can change quickly in football, for better or worse, and we've got a real backlog of games coming up which we'll have to show that we can get through.

"I think I'm able to use the word optimism now, hopefully there is a degree of that around the club now and hopefully a degree of enjoyment along the way too.

"We've got a group that are fighting hard for the club and we're hopeful we can finish in a more respectable position this season."

The Bucks boss also discussed how his squad are shaping up fitness-wise after almost three weeks without a game. Their last outing at Kidderminster Harriers saw Telford take a squad of just 15 players to Aggborough following a number of illness and injury problems

"The issues we had going into the Kidderminster game certainly stretched us," Wilkin said. "Losing the Spennymoor game (on January 3) certainly gave us a period there where a few of the lads could get themselves right. Obviously we weren't able to get the training sessions in we would have liked but we've addressed that now and hopefully we'll keep things moving forward."