Lancaster City are still right in the mix for the NPL Premier Division title – that’s the view of manager Mark Fell.

Starting the weekend in fourth place, City got the better of the team directly below them in the table – Warrington Town, who promptly dropped out of the play-off zone.

And when they returned to the dressing room at Giant Axe, they will have soon learned the news that the three teams above them all dropped points.

Leaders South Shields and FC United of Manchester could only draw, while second-placed Basford United were beaten 1-0 at Gainsborough Trinity.

Only Nantwich Town picked up three points – their 3-2 win over Bamber Bridge seeing them move into fifth place.

Now back in third spot, City are five points behind Shields, who could only draw in midweek as well.

While the teams around them do have games in hand, they are not making the most of them and and the top of the table is beginning to squeeze again.

“Definitely we are still in it,” said Fell. “South Shields are having a serious wobble.

“Their last three games they have lost one and drawn two, so they are not dominating at the top of the league.

“We have taken nine points out of the last five games, so we are averaging nearly two points per game.

“South Shields and the other teams have games in hand, but those game are starting to get eaten away.

“We always said that that we wanted to be up there and have points on the board.

“I think one of the South Shields games in hand is Nantwich away and that’s going to be no easy game for them.

“Everybody else near the top is still right in it and I think it’s going to go right down to the wire.

“We had a really tough January, but looking at it, on paper our run-in is not that bad. We are not out of it.”Fell described City’s performance over Warrington as one of their best of the season and the perfect response to two successive defeats.

“It was a great win for us,” said Fell. “I spoke last week after the two defeats on the bounce that we needed a reaction out of the players and that’s what we got.

“I thought we were brilliant. It was up there with the win over Morpeth at home a few weeks ago and some of our performances early on this season, as one of our best.

“Warrington are a very good side – they tried to change the way they did things to contend with what we were doing, but it did not matter what they did. We dominated a large chunk of the game and if the scoreline had of been 5-1 , nobody would have complained.

“Their goalkeeper Tony McMillan pulled off four or five fantastic saves – from a performance perspective it was superb.”

This weekend, City will start their fixture away at Radcliffe as huge favourites to bank another three points.

Boro have endured a disastrous start to 2020 – picking up just one point from their opening seven league games of the year.

“They are bottom of the form table,” said Fell. “But they have still got good players who will hurt us if we are not on our game.

“We will go into it as the favourites with the bookies, but we need to make sure we have the right approach and mindset because games do no always follow the form book.”

Squad wise, Fell gave run-outs to Sam Bailey, who has been missing recently through suspension, injury victims Matty Blinkhorn and Niall Cowperthwaite and new signing Danny Pilkington in the reserves on Monday night. He is confident all will be available at the

weekend.

Meanwhile, City defender Jack Armer – on loan from PNE – has been called up for Scotland Under-19s.