Boreham Wood boss still chasing top spot (From Borehamwood Times)

Boreham Wood boss Ian Allinson still targeting top spot

2:32pm Thursday 17th January 2013 in Sport By Simon Mail

Boreham Wood manager Ian Allinson insists his side have not given up hope of chasing down Conference South leaders Salisbury City.

Wood are currently a distant 14 points behind the table-toppers but their manager is not prepared to admit defeat in the race for first place.

Allinson said: “I still think that Salisbury can be caught because there are enough games left. We can still get 60 points and it would be wrong for us not to aim for first place.

“We obviously need them to have a poor run but we have to aim for that. If we settled for fourth then we could end up out of the play-offs.

“We always felt we had a squad that could compete at this level. We have put ourselves in a fantastic position to finish off the season.”

His side are currently in fourth position with a five point cushion ahead of their nearest challengers. Allinson admitted it would be a major blow if they failed to reach the play-offs at the end of the season.

He said: “We would be massively disappointed if we dropped out of the play-offs because we’ve only been out of them for one day.”

Wood face a challenging week of games, weather permitting, starting with a trip to second-placed Welling United this weekend and then a home game against the league leaders the following weekend.

Allinson said: “We have a tough ten days ahead of us now.

“Welling are a side that have been put together over the last 18 months and lost in the play-off final last year.

“They are very well organised, defensively strong and score goals. But we’ll go there full of confidence having won our last two games.”

While the Wood manager is happy with his options, he has admitted that he is still in the market for some additions to their squad.

Allinson said: “We are actively looking to strengthen the squad but we have to find the right people who are better than the players we’ve got. We’re looking at several positions and we just want to make the squad stronger.

“We need to make sure it is big enough to cope with a lot of fixtures in the last three months.”

Wood have endured a frustrating week with both their games at Eastleigh and at home to Havant & Waterlooville being postponed due to the freezing weather. Allinson said: “We are lucky we’ve got the astroturf because there’s not a lot we can do at the moment.

“The players do get frustrated but they have to stay professional. But if it keeps up then we’re looking at playing 20 games in three months which means we’ll be playing two games a week.

“The fixture backlog will be a test for everyone.”