Lancaster City boss wants to enjoy home comforts
Mark Fell wants his Lancaster City players to capitalise on their mini-run of matches at home.
The Dolly Blues have three consecutive games at Giant Axe as they look to make up for a slow start to the season.
The first of those was Tuesday’s goalless draw against Liversedge in the NPL Premier Division, a result which left City 19th in the table a third of the way through the campaign.
Next up is the FA Trophy first round tie against Gainsborough Trinity on Saturday, followed by another home game seven days later when they welcome Stafford Rangers.
Those games are followed by four consecutive away trips but, for now, Fell is focusing on the hat-trick of home matches.
Speaking after Saturday’s stalemate at FC United of Manchester, the City boss said: “It’s a three-game season for me, three games at home.
“The Trophy means a lot to us financially and in terms of momentum and progress.
“They won’t be easy games either, the lads need to replicate some of what we’ve seen today and, hopefully, that’ll be enough for us.
“We’ll have to probably shuffle the pack a little bit based on the intensity of this little period.
“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves, we know we haven’t had the start to the season that we want.
“We’ve shown glimpses of where and how we should be. Let’s see if we can replicate a little bit of that.”
Tuesday’s draw was City’s fifth in eight home league matches and came after last Saturday’s point at the leaders.
An eventful game at Broadhurst Park saw Fell’s players miss an early penalty, have a goal disallowed, equalise after falling behind and then see Niall Cowperthwaite sent off in the second half.
The Dolly Blues’ boss believed that display offers plenty of hope for the weeks ahead.
Fell said: “It was a fantastic performance. I think the fans who are honest about the game will wonder how we haven’t won the game.
“Yes, they’ve had a chance right at the death that they should score but so have we with Dale (Whitham).
“I thought our shape and our structure when we went down to 10 was fantastic.
“I thought the first 20 minutes, when we had 11 v 11 in the second half, we were fantastic.”