Telford v Coalville: Bucks on revenge mission after their enforced break

The sides meet at New Bucks Head in the Southern Central Premier tonight, having gone 10 days without a fixture due to postponements at Stamford and Royston Town.

Their two recent home games have ended 0-0, and manager Kevin Wilkin is hoping his side can find their goalscoring touch to push them over the line this season.

“Our strength has been keeping clean sheets recently and we’ve certainly got to improve on the goalscoring front,” he admitted. “I think the attacking side of things has become our focus now in training, because we’re comfortable with what we need to do as a group to make ourselves difficult to score against.”

Wilkin continued: “We got in good areas against Leiston and Bromsgrove without taking any of the chances that came along. I wouldn’t say any of them were clear-cut, but it’s the final ball and working the target better where if we get them right we’ll score more goals.

“Too many times we miss the target, too many times we get to the byline but don’t complete the cross, so it’s just about better decision making in those areas.”

The addition of Matty Stenson should go a long way to boosting the Bucks’ firepower, while Ricardo Dinanga, Byron Moore, Ellis Brown, Ty Webster, Reece Styche and Montel Gibson are all fit and competing for spots in attacking areas.

It is the first time Kevin Wilkin has had a full quota of players to pick from, boosted by the imminent returns of Jordan Piggott and Jared Hodgkiss.

On the injured pair Wilkin commented: “Both are fairly close, if they’re not back tomorrow I’d like to think as long as there are no hiccups they’ll be involved on Saturday. Fraser (Kerr) had a bit of a tight hamstring last week, so we took him out for most of the session to do a little bit of rehab, but everyone is good to go.”

Tonight’s opponents Coalville Town knocked Telford out of the FA Cup with a 1-0 win at New Bucks Head in September.

Their 23 league games this season have seen 93 goals scored within them, and Wilkin is expecting an open game from the start.

“There’s no doubt about it, they’d have been expecting to be in the play-offs as a minimum this season and I’m sure it’ll be a very tough game,” he said. “I’d say their strong suit is they can score goals from all angles and areas of the team.”

He added: “They are strong up front with goalscorers all across the front line, but equally they’ve conceded a few along the way too.

“Although we drew the games against Leiston and Bromsgrove nobody in the changing room afterwards was happy with those results.

“We want our home form to be strong and on Tuesday night we’re going to put a shift in to try and get the result.”