The Mitres travel to Westfields tomorrow as they look to continue their fine run of form under manager Paul Collicutt.
Last week saw them make the short trip to Longlevens and secure themselves a 2-0 victory courtesy of goals from Jordan Annear and Kevin Slack.
The win took them nine points clear of the Hellenic Prem and Cleeve’s fans will be excited to hear that their top goal scorer Jack Watts is likely to return to action tomorrow.
Speaking midweek, Paul Collicutt was quick to extinguish any mention of Cleeve being favourites to win the League and revealed:
“I’ve been in football for a long time and I can luckily say that throughout my career as a player and in management, I’ve never suffered a relegation and I’ve been able to be involved with several promotions.
“I know where it’s better to be and that’s at the top of the table. The hardest thing is winning promotion but I’ve said to the team that they’ve done the easy part by getting to the top and the hardest part now is staying there.”
His side face a tough run of fixtures as we head into the back end of the season including playing tomorrow’s opponents twice as well as Bradford Town who currently sit in second place.
“It’s a nice position to be in but you can’t take it for granted. That’s my job to make sure that we don’t slack off.
“We’ve had some really great games of football in recent weeks, we’ve got twelve games left and they’re twelve cup finals for us now.
“Teams will obviously lift their game against you and we’ve been finding that as we go home and away.”
Over the Christmas period Westbury crushed the Mitres’ impressive 18 game unbeaten run after the visitors lost 5-2 to to the home side.
Collicutt commented on players’ availability for this weekend and revealed some of the struggles he’s had this season when it comes to selection.
“It’s been a strange season on selection, I genuinely can’t think of the last time I was able to build the same starting XI in back to back games.
“We certainly, for whatever, reason have had some selection issues with some being more serious than others.
“Some of it has been comical at times! I know it’s been printed in the press that we’ve used ten goalkeepers this season and I’ve never in all my career come across that problem.”
Eagle eyed fans spotted Cleeve’s injured captain Archie Haskayne warming up last weekend and his return date is edging closer and closer.
“He’s been a massive loss for us and we’re hoping that Archie will be fit within the next four to six weeks.”
“He’s under no pressure to get back, he’s a determined character but to have someone missing of his calibre just shows how well the rest of the team have adapted and gone about their football without Archie in the team.”
With Kieran Alder and top goal scorer Jack Watts back for tomorrow, it should make for an exciting battle come 15:00 Saturday.
