He’s putting his back problem behind him, if you’ll pardon the expression, and Macclesfield's Danny Whitaker is looking ahead with optimism, both on a personal level and with the Silkmen.

The star midfielder spent late August and the whole of September and October watching his team mates from the sidelines with a curious back injury that kept him out of contention.

But he’s back in action and promising that with more game time he’ll only get better in the coming weeks.

“I’m getting there, it’ll take me a while, probably a couple of weeks, to get my match-fitness up to where I need it to be,” the 34-year-old said after a grafting 90-minute stint at Welling. “I’m not feeling the injury any more but I just need to get my match-fitness up now.

“But I’m feeling fit and it’s just a case of getting through the games at the minute, I think I’ll be pretty stiff through tomorrow and into Monday.

“But we’ll go again next week and keep giving it everything.”

Wilmslow’s finest returned to his hometown club as John Askey was putting together his first squad in summer last year. His capture proved to be the coup everyone expected, as Whitaker was one of the leading lights in last year's campaign.

And with Paul Turnbull suspended at Park View Road and Paul Lewis still nursing his own injury, a broken collarbone, his return was a timely boost for Askey.

Whitaker wore the armband at Welling and helped spur the Silkmen on to a valuable point.

“I think we did alright with three at the back, considering it’s a new formation,” he said after his gruelling Welling outing.

“There were a few occasions where a couple of lads didn’t know whether to go and close down or stay in position but that’s always going to happen with a new set-up, but we did well all in all.

“It was heavy going at times but I thought everyone put a great shift in.

“These are hard places to come and it’s not easy to play football here – you know what you’re going to get when you come here but I thought we battled well.

“We knew it would be difficult, it’s a tight pitch and not ideal for playing football on so we knew it would be scrappy but I thought we dealt well with it. We struggled a little bit at set pieces because they’re a big side but all in all we’re happy with the point.

“And Rhys saved us a few times, we just expect these performances from him every week now – I think he was average by his standards today!

“We rely on him every week so he’s put the pressure on himself now.”

In truth Macc rarely threatened Jon Henly’s goal at Welling but Whitaker is adamant that few visiting teams will better that result there. In fact only leaders Barnet have won at Welling, making the point gained all the more impressive.

“We’re up there and we knew it was going to be tough today but we ground out a point,” continued Whitaker. “It’s one extra on the board – and there won’t be many teams who come here and take all three points – so we’ll take that and we’ve now got two games at home that we think are winnable.

“We’re doing really well at home so there’s no reason why we wouldn’t go into them full of confidence.”