Telford v Stratford Town preview: Kevin Wilkin wants his Bucks to get nasty in hunt for form
Kevin Wilkin knows AFC Telford United must be ruthless if they are to achieve what they want to achieve this season.
After exiting the FA Trophy against lower-league Quorn, the Bucks have no other distractions, with full focus now turning to the Southern Central Premier.
And despite being the big fish in a small pond, Wilkin acknowledged the need to match the quality of infrastructure off the pitch with the quality of performance on it.
“We’ve got a fantastic stadium with a fantastic surface, a fantastic fanbase, we just need to find a consistently good team to put out on the field and that will come with time,” he said. “Just because we have those great things doesn’t mean we can turn up and beat any side – everybody wants to beat Telford.”
Wilkin continued: “We must use that as an advantage when teams come here.
“You won’t play on a better surface this season; you probably won’t play on a better surface anywhere in the country, that’s how lucky we are.”
Telford have fallen into a bad habit of making slow starts this season, and the same happened against Quorn as they fell 2-0 down before the break.
It is something that Wilkin is desperate to cut out, knowing that when they do so it will see them climb up the table.
“We can’t give Stratford or anybody else moments of encouragement, we’ve been guilty of that on several occasions,” the Bucks boss admitted. “We need to find that extra bit of nastiness to not give ourselves a mountain to climb against sides that raise their game.”
He continued: “I’m confident that when we find those levels we’ll move back up the league.”
Bucks will go above Stratford if they beat them on Saturday and could move as high as ninth with a win. Just six points separate fifth place from 17th in the division, with most sides operating at a similar level so far.
“We’re expecting another tough game, there are a lot of very closely matched sides in the division,” Wilkin said. “If we can piece together a few wins it will see us bounce up the league into the positions we’re all more comfortable with and where we feel we should be.”
Telford’s task could be helped by the return of Nathan Fox, who has been missing for nearly two months.
“I’m keeping everything crossed that Nathan will be fit for Saturday,” Wilkin explained. “He got half a session done on Tuesday before we withdrew him for the other half.”
The left-footed defender’s return will allow Wilkin to move the versatile Jordan Piggott out of defence, something he has been keen to do for a while.
“You see the fantastic goals he scored against St Ives and Nuneaton when he’s stepping forward with the ball, he’s the only one in our team who can do that at the moment,” Wilkin explained. “We need to find more players like that, and I want to shift him into a position where he can have more impact on games.”
