MACCLESFIELD Town assistant manager Steve Watson believes his team have now proven what they are capable of when they perform at their very best.
The Silkmen kept up their good run of form when they defeated Aldershot 2-0 at the Moss Rose on Saturday. Goals from Ryan Llloyd and Elliott Durrell helped the team come out on top against one of their promotion rivals.
That triumph saw Macclesfield climb up to fourth place in the National League table and move within one point of top spot, ahead of the midweek fixtures that took place as the Express went to print.
The win over Aldershot on Saturday came one week after Macc’s impressive victory against Torquay United, much to the delight of Watson, who has been extremely pleased with what he has recently seen and hopes the team can keep it up.
“The lads set the standard against Aldershot. It was a great result last week, but performance wise this week it was as good as any,” he said.
“If you look at the bench – we might not have a huge squad, but it’s full of quality – we’ve got very good players who are fit who can’t make the squad at the moment.
“The lads in the team know that they have to perform to stay in the team, and there’s competition for places.
“We’ve got a good squad of lads, good footballers and good people. They’ve set the standard now and if they achieve anything like that performance when we face Guiseley on Tuesday night then they’ve got a great chance of getting a third win in a row.”
That match against Guiseley at Nethermoor Park was set to take place on Tuesday as the Express went to print, and Watson had a fairly good idea of what sort of threat their opponents would have heading into the away fixture.
“We know how the manager sets his teams up and they’re usually very hard to play against,” he said.
“Guiseley in the last couple of seasons have tried to play a lot of football and they’re probably in a bit of a transition at the moment.
“We know how hard Paul Cox’s teams work and we’re under no illusions as to how tough it’s going to be, and they need a win. But at the end of the day so do we because we’re going in the right direction.”
