Boss wants Matlock Town to crank up the pressure on league rivals

Matlock have a three point lead over second placed South Shields who travel to Atherton Colleries while third placed Buxton, seven points behind Matlock but with three games in hand have an FA Cup 1st Round tie at York City.

A win for Phillips’ side would not only keep them in pole position but it would mean Buxton would be ten points adrift and would probably need to win all four of their games in hand to sneak above Matlock.

“It’s a massive game for both South Shields and Buxton were knocked out of the FA Trophy last Saturday so they will have the chance to make up ground when we play in the next round,” he said.

"So it’s down to us to prepare right, do our homework, work on certain things in training and put out a side which can hopefully inspire us to three points on Saturday.”

Matlock had Whitby watched as the Seasiders made FA Trophy progress with a 1-0 victory at Shildon before Phillips himself saw Whitby in action at fourth placed Bamber Bridge on Tuesday, Brig winning 3-0.

He added: “Whitby have good players with the likes of Jacob Hazel up front, they’re a big side who are well organised so we’ll be in for a tough game. We’ll keep plugging away trying to get the points we need.”

Matlock made it through to the First Round of the FA Trophy with a 2-1 home win against AFC Rushden & Diamonds and will now travel to Rushall Olympic on Saturday week.

It wasn’t the kindest of draws for Matlock but Phillips says his full attention at present is on earning three points against Whitby.

“Playing on astroturf away from home isn’t that great for us and they’re doing quite well in their league,” he said. “It’ll be tough, nothing’s ever easy at our club though but Whitby is our main focus and we’ll start looking at Rushall next week.

“We scored two great goals but I was more concerned with the chances we missed. We scored the two goals from our hardest chances, we missed chances which were a lot easier.”