Lions need a string of victories to reach play-offs – Marcus Bignot

The Lions take on second-placed King’s Lynn Town this weekend and they’ll be hoping to maintain their eight-match unbeaten run away from home.

Last week Guiseley dominated Leamington in their 3-0 victory before going on to beat Harrogate 2-1 in the semi-finals of the West Riding County Cup just two days later.

“The biggest confidence in football is winning football games,” said Bignot.

“The 3-0 win over Leamington in front of our own supporters was very satisfying. And then of course that win on Monday night and getting a second successive final.

“The supporters on Monday showed just how much it meant to them with the number of fans that travelled to Harrogate.

“It was really an entertaining and exciting game.”

King’s Lynn come into Saturday’s game on the back of some incredibly poor results.

Just last month, the Linnets looked unstoppable in their pursuit of promotion however, since Kidderminster ended their 14-match unbeaten run in the league, Town have only managed four points in as many games.

Despite their faltering form, Bignot is well-aware of the threats posed by King’s Lynn saying: “They’re a footballing team.

“The two centre-forwards they’ve got, in terms of pairings, they’re up there with the best if not the best in this league.

“They’ve got some really good attacking players so we’re going to have to be at our best off the ball, but also we’re going to have to carry that threat on the ball as well.”

The two clubs last met on the opening weekend of the season with Guiseley winning that encounter 3-0.

Bignot added: “We can take confidence and encouragement from the result we had earlier on in the season at home against them.

“We know it’s going to be a difficult game but for us, if we want to get into those play-offs, we know that now it’s not the case of back-to-back wins.

“We need to turn those into three and four wins in a row to allow us to leapfrog into those play-offs.

“It’s a really tough ask to come away with three points but we’ll be doing everything we can.”

The Lions are currently 10th and are five points off the play-offs.

Just behind them are Farsley Celtic who in recent weeks, lost ground on the top seven as a result of three defeats in four games.

Adam Lakeland’s men will be hoping to rediscover their winning form when they take on Darlington this weekend.

This is a side that Farsley have beaten in their last two encounters however, with the Quakers going unbeaten in their last four games, getting the three points could prove a lot easier said than done.

The Celts are seven points off the play-offs and face a tough run-in with games against league leaders York City, promotion chasing Boston United and play-off contenders Southport still to come in March.

Meanwhile, bottom-of-the-table Bradford Park Avenue will be aiming for their third straight victory when they host fellow strugglers Curzon Ashton.

Avenue beat Chester 2-1 at home on Saturday and followed that up by producing one of the shocks of the season by winning 1-0 away at King’s Lynn, but they are still 12 points from safety and 11 adrift of Curzon.

******

Harrogate Town manager Simon Weaver wants his players to send a statement of intent when they visit Solihull Moors tonight.

Second-placed Town closed the gap on National League leaders Barrow to just four points last weekend and will cut the Bluebirds’ advantage to just one if they emerge victorious from their clash with the West Midlanders.

Although Barrow have led the way for some time now, they haven’t been able to shake Town off their tail, and suffered their first home defeat since September at the weekend, losing out 2-0 to Notts County.

Weaver’s men failed to capitalise fully on that result, conceding a late equaliser against Bromley on Saturday, but the Town boss wants his side to crank up the pressure on the Bluebirds.

“Hopefully we can send another statement at Solihull,” he said. “The gap between us and Barrow is just four points and if we can trim that further then that increases the pressure on them that little bit more.

“They’re still in front and in a great position. They’re the favourites, but we are fighting hard to catch them.”

If Town are to move within striking distance of Barrow then they will need to perform much better than they did on their previous visit to Solihull, when they lost 2-0.

“We have to play much better than last time we went there,” Weaver added.

“That game highlighted the areas where we were really lacking last season. It’s always a tough game against Solihull because they’re so big, but we need to make sure that we’re able to play our own game.”

Meanwhile, FC Halifax Town manager Pete Wild is confident his side will put things right when they host Ebbsfleet tomorrow in-front of the BT Sport cameras (5.20pm kick-off).

The Shaymen are aiming to bounce back from a disappointing 2-0 home defeat to Woking last Saturday.

Wild said: “We’ve got to be at our best to compete, but we weren’t at our best and Woking took their only two chances.

“So we know we’ve got to be better than that, we know we were miles off it on Saturday, but we’re confident.

“We’ve trained really well, we’ve tried to address one or two things and we’re confident we can put that right on Saturday.”