Spartans assistant manager Tom Wade looked forward to welcoming Ashton United to Croft Park on Tuesday night and insisted that the game is one of the biggest fixtures of the season given his side’s current league position especially coming on the back of Saturday’s disappointing defeat at Rushall Olympic. Wade feels that Spartans need to make home comforts count as they look to drag themselves away from the lower reaches of the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League and wants that process to start on Tuesday with the backing of the Croft Park faithful.
He said “The Ashton game is massive for us as players, management and for the club in general. Saturday was a bad day for us, we know that but with home advantage and our supporters behind us as they always are we can turn the game into a real positive.” He would go on to praise the Green Army by saying “The Croft Park crowd understand we have a young, developing side and we are in an unforgiving league. They have been patient and they know their football, they’ve been brilliant for us and we need them to stick with us but we know it’s time to start paying them back for that.”
With the 2-5 defeat at Rushall still very much fresh in the memory of all those connected with Spartans, Wade made it clear that the players have been made aware that a repeat of such a performance will not be tolerate but was pleased with the reaction of the players. He commented “I said to the players after the game on Saturday you can blame a lot of things but once they cross that white line it’s down to them. They all love the club and I mean that but they know they’ve let people down on Saturday. Sometimes you put an arm around the shoulder and give encouragement but I think we will see a reaction on Tuesday without me and Paddy having to do much in terms of motivating.”
While much of the focus would be on getting the right result on the pitch, Wade was looking for a boost off the pitch with a couple of new additions being lined up. Former Spartans midfielder Stephen Turnbull rejoined the club on Monday and will go straight into the squad for the fixture against the Robins which will be a major boost and Wade was also keen to praise one of the junior members of the Croft Park squad ahead of the game.
He said “We have a couple of irons in the fire in regards to players coming into the club who would be a massive boost in terms of quality and numbers and of course have three players back. There were some positives on Saturday in particular from Danny Maguire, he really drove us forward and was a real positive that we can take into the Ashton game along with the returning players and a new face or two. That should give us a lift going into such a big fixture”