Southport boss Liam Watson has talked up the magnitude of their upcoming tests against Chorley and Brackley Town.
Port welcome two of the promotion contenders with the Magpies the first of the visitors to Haig Avenue. Andy Preece’s side sit below the Yellows in the table but a win could see them jump to sixth – if results go in their favour.
Southport go into the clash licking their wounds after they were stunned 4-1 by Buxton, last weekend. The match was marred by a number of contentious decisions but Watson admitted that the buck stops at his squad.
He told Off The Park: “It was one of our best performances of the season, the scoreline is totally false. If we’d have come in three or four up at half-time no one could possibly have any complaints.
“As much as the referee had a huge bearing on the game where I think it was clear as anyone could imagine how bad of a game he had, we can only blame ourselves as well, we’ve missed an incredible amount of chances, it’s come back to bite us.
“Sometimes it happens, you play well and get beat. I just look at it in blocks, we had Farsley away, Kiddy away, Spennymoor away and Buxton at home and we’ve come away with nine points, you’d have never have thought it would’ve been nine points the way round it has come but it has.
“No big deal, we have to take it on the chin and look ahead to a big weekend, we’ve got two big games in Chorley and Brackley where we have to turn up and perform.”
On Thursday, Connor Woods’ extension at Warrington Town was confirmed. The Skelmersdale-born attacker has been in blistering form for the Northern Premier League side, scoring five in his last seven, including an important brace against South Shields.
The Yellows boss admitted that he wouldn’t stand in the way of Woods and Dylan Vassallo’s progression and recall them for the sake of it.
He revealed: “It will probably get decided over the weekend. I’d only be bringing them back if they were to play, when it goes into the second month it’s irrelevant anyway, it’s more or less a week-to-week then.
“Jordan Archer’s fully fit, Connor Heath will be involved in the two games, Marcus, Niall, Tyler, Josh Hmami, we’ve got enough [strike options].
“It’ll always be tough, Preecy works hard, sets his teams up well, it’s never easy,” he said ahead of this weekend’s encounter. “He’ll be looking at how I’m looking at it, we’ll both think it’s a winnable game, difficult but winnable and we’ll see the outcome on Saturday.
“They’ve got some good footballers, under the radar, but so have we. I think we’ve got to use our physicality against Chorley and put our presence on them. We tend to change our formations regularly so it’ll be a formation that we think we can get the best out of the players we’ve got.”
[Featured image: Julia Urwin – Southport FC]
