Stratford Town boss Paul Davis backs players ahead of key game against bottom side Biggleswade in Southern League Premier Central

PAUL Davis is reading nothing into the league table as Stratford bid to get their play-off push back on track.

The Bards have won only one of their past six games in Southern League Premier Central, a run that’s left them three points outside the top five in sixth place.

They host bottom side Biggleswade this Saturday (3pm), a team who have won only three times all season.

On paper, it’s a good fixture for the Bards but boss Davis knows it won’t be easy.

“Their position suggests they’re the worst team in the league,” he said. “However, I can’t remember the last time they got beat convincingly.

“We beat them 2-0 over there but it was a 2-0 game, not three, four or five nil, and on Saturday they played Spalding and were 4-0 down at half-time and only lost 4-3.

“They’ve got a lot of honest players that got promoted last year, they stick together, they stick with the manager, and they are in every game.

“There’s no easy games anyway but the way we’re playing at the minute, you can’t be complacent with any team.

“We need to have full focus on us this week and produce on Saturday afternoon.

“It’s 11 versus 11 and come 3pm we’ve got to be the best we can be.

“A few players in our dressing room said a few weeks ago the only team who can beat us is us, and currently we are beating ourselves.

“They haven’t become bad players overnight. If there was one thing you could put your finger on why teams have a blip in the season, no one would have a blip, would they?

“Ask any manager or fan why a team goes on a blip, there’s no real right or wrong answer, is there? But for some reason, every team in every league does it within the season at some point.

“The last five or six games we haven’t been up to our standards and we’ve paid the price in terms of results.

“Our aim is to be more consistent and if our blip is six games in a 42-game season, I think we’d have taken that.

“We need to get back to the drawing board a little bit for Saturday, we’re going to change a few things this week and hopefully put in a performance for the supporters.

“We might need to change some personnel, change the formation, change how we go about it, and maybe go a bit more on the front foot.”

Stratford are set to be without midfielder Tom Solanke, who suffered a hamstring injury inside 10 minutes of last weekend’s 3-1 defeat at play-off rivals Harborough.

Jack Burgess, their new signing from Stafford Rangers, is in line to make his second start after an impressive full debut.

“I thought Jack was excellent against Harborough,” said Davis. “He’s a ball-playing central midfield player.

“We’ve got some good players and Jack adds to that.

“We wanted to sign him for next season but the chairman’s been kind enough to let us bring him in this season.

“So we’ve started to build things already for next year but this season isn’t done yet.”