It's crucial we get back on track in the league, says Maidstone United assistant Nicky Southall

The Stones suffered a surprise 2-0 defeat away to Metropolitan Police last Saturday, a couple of days following THAT 2-1 win over Stevenage in The FA Cup First Round Replay, when striker Frannie Collin scored both goals to knock out the League Two outfit.

Maidstone United host Tony Russell’s VCD Athletic side sitting in second-place in the Ryman Premier League table, having collected 14 wins, 1 draw and three defeats.

Vickers are in the bottom three, having won four, drawn four and lost thirteen league games and went down to a 3-0 home defeat to Tonbridge Angels last Saturday.

Jay Saunders’ men are seven points behind Margate, but they do have four games in hand over Terry Brown’s team.

Southall, 42, has looked at the league table and has noticed Hendon are in third-place but are only one point behind.

He said: “Today’s game against VCD is a great chance to start another decent run of winnable matches in the league leading up to Christmas.

“We still have the big FA Cup Second Round game against Wrexham next week. It should be a great occasion but for me I just want to get back to the week in, week out league campaign as we all know is our priority.

“We’re now four games behind Margate and as the old saying goes the points on the board are generally preferred

“This lack of games brings other clubs into the equation as you can see that Hendon are looking fairly strong and in decent form so a lot of people were saying it’s a two horse race – no chance!

“There’s a lot of good teams in this league and anyone can take points of each other – look at last week (when we lost) at Met Police and Margate lose away as well!

“Nobody from the Ryman League gives you the trophy in November and says well done you’re now the champions, so it’s crucial that we get back on track and build up as many points between now and the Christmas period starting today against VCD.”

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