Witham look to close out productive December on a high

“We won’t get too carried away but there is a reason why we are unbeaten in five and we are optimistic.” mark ashford

MANAGER Mark Ashford is calling for his Witham Town team to close out a productive December with another positive result when they head to Maldon & Tiptree on Saturday.An eye-catching 1-1 draw with Coggeshall Town last weekend extended Witham’s unbeaten run to five games and with ten points from a possible 12 so far in the final month of 2018, they have moved themselves off the foot of the Bostik League division north table.

So Ashford is now challenging his players to complete the job and go through the entire month unbeaten and although the Jammers, like Coggeshall, are pressing hard for promotion this year, he feels his team can travel to Park Drive in confident mood.He said: “Ultimately, to get a draw against a team like Coggeshall is good for a team like us because it’s something that not many have done.

“That’s why they are second in the table and to have not been at our best and walked away with a point tells you a lot about the players’ mentality now.“That’s five games unbeaten and just one goal conceded in four games and we now want to finish the month of December unbeaten when we go to Maldon.

“We have a training session lined up in the week and we’ll have a plan for Maldon, who are a very technical team.

“They are a possession-based side and you have to be really switched on to do your job, but the pitch there is lovely and I think that will suit us.“We’ll go there with confidence.

“Every time we have played against teams at the top of the table, we have given them good games.

“The difference now is that we have more resilience and we have more attacking players in the squad.

“We look a threat and look a team who can create opportunities from a number of different positions and we have competition for places.

“We’ve come a long way from the end of November to the end of December and if we can put in another good performance against Maldon, then we have some games in January where we should be confident that we can pick up some points.”While Ashford isn’t getting carried away with his team’s recent upturn in form, he knows they have now given themselves a good platform to build from in the opening months of 2019.

He added: “We want to get up to the group of sides just above us and then see where we can get up to from that.“We won’t get too carried away but there is a reason why we are unbeaten in five and we are optimistic.

“We feel we can compete toe-to-toe with anyone in this league and it sets us up for an exciting 2019.”

By Simon Spurgeon

Updated 07:25 - 30 Aug 2019 by swifty