Adam Lakeland says the attitude and team spirit in his squad is strong as FC Halifax Town prepare for their first home game of the season.
The club have had to play all of their first three matches away from home to allow The Shay pitch to be ready.
But Town will host Forest Green Rovers on Saturday in what will be Lakeland’s first home game in charge.
“We’ve got to rest and recover and work hard in our preparation, do our due diligence on Forest Green, but approach the game like we do any other,” he said when asked how Town can back-up their win at Boston United on Tuesday.
“We focus more on ourselves, we acknowledge what the opposition are and how they want to play, and how we have to try and counteract that.
“But you can’t focus too much on the opposition, we’ve got to also give the opposition something to think about from our perspective as well.
“It’s going to be another difficult game, they’re obviously one of the big spenders in the division, one of the favourties for the title.
“But it’s our first game at The Shay.
“We’ve now played eight friendlies and three league games away from home, so it’ll be nice to experience The Shay for the first time as the manager, and for a lot of our players to play their first competitive game there for the club.
“Hopefully the supporters get down there in numbers, get behind the team and we can put in another good performance.”
Lakeland was hoping to be able to train on The Shay pitch ahead of Saturday’s game.
“The chairman’s working really hard to try and make that happen but we’ll have to see if that’s possible or not,” he said.
And the Town boss would like to make that a regular arrangement during the season if possible.
“Ideally yes,” he said. “The pitch is so big at The Shay, and with it being a new surface, it’d be good to have the option to dip in and train there when we’re able to, but let’s see.”
After consecutive defeats to start the season, Town are now aiming for two wins in-a-row followng the midweek victory at Boston.
“Back-to-back wins aren’t easy to do, but we want to try and win every game,” said Lakeland.
“That’s the challenge. If you can put back-to-back wins, or more, together, then it certainly helps elevate you in any league table at any stage of the season.
“Not that we’ve paid too much attention to that, we’re only three games in, but when you lose your first two, you have a decent idea of where you’re going to be.
“But I’ve been calm about it, because I believe in these players.
“I’ve worked with them day in, day out now for a good few weeks and there’s going to be spells of frustration and moments in games where we’ll make errors, because that’s the nature of having a youthful team.
“But what we have got is a good little spirit already, we’ve got a willingness to work, we’re fit, we’ve got legs and we got a big three points on Tuesday.”
Defender Dylan Crowe has missed the last two games through injury, but should be back available for the weekend.
“Wasn’t quite ready on Tuesday but we’re hopeful he’ll be OK for the weekend,” Lakeland said.
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