Skelmersdale United manager Paul McNally was happy with his sides back-to-back wins but they’re not resting on their laurels despite being top of the league.
The win over AFC Liverpool on Tuesday saw them leapfrog Macclesfield into first with Danny Whittaker’s side having two games in hand.
But for McNally the games against Longridge Town and Chris Anderson’s side, it was a matter of seeing out the performances and ensuring they had maximum points at the end of the encounters.
Saturday saw Skem avenge their opening game defeat to Longridge with a 3-1 win thanks to Tom Croughan’s brace after Danny Mitchley opened the scoring.
However, the win over AFC wasn’t as smooth as the reverse fixture where they previously ran out 4-1 winners.
Michael Howard made it 15 for the season before Abdul Djalo doubled their lead seven minutes later. But with the hosts pulling a goal back, Skem settled on their lead and held on to move to the summit of the North West Counties Premier Division.
“Two tough tricky games and we’ve carefully got through them,” he told Off The Park.
“They weren’t without any pitfalls, Tuesday night could’ve been comfortable, AFC Liverpool could feel hard done by but we could’ve been comfortable in the first half, easily out of sight, got a penalty – they’d say it was fortunate – I don’t think it was he handballed it.
“We made it hard for ourselves after going a couple of goals up, we conceded and it gave them a bit of belief. We were probably hanging on, we just needed the result on the night, I think if we weren’t going for that result, we wouldn’t of attacked them in the last 15.
“We sat in, done our job and rolled it out, got the result which I thought we deserved. Against Longridge it was similar we could’ve been out of sight first half, we wasn’t. Then give them a bit of a lift then second half we got a 3-1 victory that’s all that mattered, at this stage of the season it’s the points on the board that count.
“It’s more of a morale-boosting victory, a sign to say we can still do it, we are still around to put pressure on, as will three or other teams they’re going to put pressure on us and them.
“It’s just a case of plodding on and seeing where it takes us and at this minute, it’s taken us top although they’ve got a game in hand – but as they always say you’d rather have the points on the board.
“They’ve still got two tough games to play as they all are for everyone else. Hopefully Saturday we can win and they can stumble so we can further clear and it’d even itself out.
“They’re a good team, they’re always organised for Mick [McGraa] does, he always has them well drilled,” He added ahead of their clash with Vauxhall Motors this weekend. “We’ll show them the respect, we beat them in the FA Cup at home but we got beat in the league game. It was a boring game but they edged and deservedly so on the day.
“I’m hoping we can put them wrongs right on Saturday and keep the pressure, we’ve got a game after Winsford another tough game then Padiham. But we haven’t got that many games up until the Christmas period we’ve got a break then – we just need to go into Christmas with a few wins and keep batting on.”
