These are manager Steve Settle’s note from tonight’s programme, available on the gate for £2.

Good evening everyone and welcome to Brookburn Road for tonight’s league fixture against Hanley Town. We hope that everyone connected with Hanley has an enjoyable evening and we extend a warm welcome!

Tonight’s game will be a tough one, Hanley are currently 5th in the league and come into tonight’s game on the back of an 8-2 demolition of Maine Road at the weekend. It’s a certainty that we will have to be at our very best to get the right result tonight.

Following a frustrating week during which our plans were hindered by the cold snap, we managed to pick up 4 points away from home this week. Firstly drawing 3-3 at Darwen where I felt we were comfortably on top in the first half hour and deservedly led through Tom Baileys 30th goal of the season only to concede 2 terrible goals in the space of 3 minutes, the first a corner where we conceded a penalty and the second an own goal! In the second half we gambled a little by going on the attack and missed chance after chance before Joe Shaw rescued a point with a well-placed free kick. It’s worth noting the impact of a couple of players. We’ve been asking for the bench to contribute when they get an opportunity so it was pleasing to see Georgi grab a goal at the back stick and Chappi unsettle Darwen with his pace!

More recently this weekend at Squires Gate we were delighted to get 3 points, particularly in consideration of the way the game played out! Again, we started brightly but found ourselves 1-0 down via a penalty, and we were grateful to Azza immediately after this after he pulled off a great save to keep it at 1-0! After that I thought we were very good playing on the front foot creating chances. As the second half wore on I felt we had 2 stonewall penalties turned down and you started to think it’s going to be one of those days (again)!! Full credit must go to the lads for the way they kept going scoring a brilliant goal as Stevie Affleck crossed for Bails to nod in and then Chappi winning us a penalty for Bails to win the game!

It’s been brilliant to get the likes of Matt Eck and Ash back into the team recently! They are 2 players that bring quality and experience to our squad and we’re hopeful our results will reflect this! With a positive result tonight we can push up the table and start to think about aim by for a top 10 finish as opposed to fighting a relegation battle. 

As always, thanks for the continued support!

Come on West!
– Setts