Southport manager Liam Watson believes his side won’t be too far away from the leading pack following their impressive yet disappointing draw with Brackley Town.
Port have turned around their early season fortunes and felt aggrieved that they only managed a point on Tuesday night.
This weekend marks their fourth straight home fixture. Out of their previous three, they have picked up four points following their win over Chorley Town before the midweek draw with the Saints.
Last month, the Yellows travelled to Farsley Celtic where they ran out 3-0 winners during their impressive run of away matches.
But the Port boss is under no illusions that it will be as plane sailing as the scoreline in their previous meeting suggests. “There’ll be a tough ask, we played them a couple of weeks ago down there, a tough game,” he told Off The Park.
“It was windy, caused them problems from set-pieces but they’ve caused us problems with their forwards, two experienced lads, both scored goals higher up.
“We have to treat them with respect, we’ll never go and disrespect anyone, if we’re going to win any games, we’ve got to be at it from the first whistle.
“Do it again, outwork them, take your chances and let’s get back to what we’ve been good at and that’s keeping clean sheets.
“We ask questions, we’ll cause them problems from a long throw. We should’ve scored one in the first-half, someone switched off when it’s gone through to the back. It’s one of them things, Saturday we’ve got to make sure we’re clinical and we’ll be fine.”
Against Brackley, Southport could’ve took home the points as Chris Doyle was denied late on as well as Jordan Archer’s free header midway through the second half.
Watson notes the positives of Tuesday and believes that after the showing, Southport can compete at the higher end of the table.
He continued: “That’s all you can do, today’s gone, move onto the next one then we’ve got Kings Lynn so by this time next week, we’ll have seen the two top teams. Brackley, no disrespect to them, they’re a top side and I don’t think we’ll be far away.
“It doesn’t really do anything, I knew he was going on Friday, he give us a good final farewell,” Watson added on the recall of Marcus Carver.
“Jordan had been ill but he’s come on on Saturday and scored two goals, Connor Heath has had a slight hamstring so we knew today he’d be fit and Connor Woods is still out there scoring, we’ll be alright.”
[Featured image: Julia Urwin – Southport FC]
